The Birth of Iconia
by wesleyehowell
Summary: Stargate Command turns to Global Dynamics for help developing technology to defeat the Ori.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note:_

_The following story is a collaboration between wesleyehowell and compbrain1720. _

_It will be a three arc story, possibly four. The first part is "The Birth of Iconia"_

_Due to the Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey nature of this story, things can and will seem hard to follow and sometimes even downright contradictory. This is perfectly normal. If you read through to the end, however, things will become clear. _

_This is an alternate reality as there are several changes to canon in both stories._

_In this story Jack and Samantha Carter are siblings._

_The Eureka timeline as seen in the show starts in 2004._

_Things different in this universe are:_

_Janet Fraser did not die (this will be explained later)_

_Aiden Ford was not fed on (for the same reason as Janet Fraser surviving)_

_Prometheus was not destroyed due to GD upgrades to its equipment_

_General Hammond did not die (GD's medical science prevents this)_

_During the battle over Asura, lots of equipment was harvested by beaming, rather than let it be destroyed._

_The fatal error in the Asgard cloning technique never arose._

_These events happen instead of "The Ark of Truth"_

**_Chapter 1_**

"Ally? Where are my jogging shorts?" Jack Carter was throwing things this way and that, searching the freshly washed laundry for his elusive jogging shorts.

"In the laundry…. basket," his wife, Allison, finished weakly as she walked into the room. "Do you have to sack and pillage while you're searching?" she asked, picking up a pair of pants that had been thrown carelessly onto the bed.

Jack was frantically searching, still. "I just need to get going, if I'm gonna get my exercise in this morning," he said as he flung some of her unmentionables aside.

Allison saw a glint of the fabric he was looking for, and grabbed it before it was re-buried. She held it up. "Jack."

"I need to clear my head, so I'm fresh before I get there, you know?

"Jack." A bit louder this time.

"This is kinda going to be a blending of two parts of my life, and I'd like to show up with a clear head. I wish you could go jogging with me, though." He stopped and looked at his wife, who was still holding up the prize. "Is there another basket some…" He finally saw what she had in her hand. "You found them."

"Yes, Jack. That's what I've been trying to tell you." She handed them to him. "You're right. You do need to clear your head."

He reached for the shorts, but she held them behind her back until he kissed her. "I wish I could go jogging with you too."

"After the baby," he said, grinning.

She nodded, and smiled back. "After the baby."

Jack had been jogging for about twenty minutes, trying to clear his head. Recently, he had been on edge, feeling that if he looked quickly enough, in a certain direction, that he would see someone standing there, watching. He knew that this was ridiculous, but he just couldn't shake the feeling.

He finally realized that he wasn't going to be able to clear his head until got himself thinking about something else. To that end, he started thinking about the people he was going to be meeting with and how they had changed his life.

One of them was his sister, Samantha. They were twins, although she was 3 hours older than he was. She had been a stabilizing influence in his life and she was also a genius. She was every bit as smart as anybody that he worked with in Eureka.

Next was Jack O'Neill, a very good friend. O'Neill had recruited Jack to work for the SGC several years before at the behest of Sam. Sam and Jack's father had been very close to death at the time. However, Jacob, their father, had become a Tok'Ra and the merging with the symbiont had saved his life. Sam had gone to O'Neill, and pointed out that Jack was a US Marshal. As such he would be invaluable to the SGC. Jack had a way with people. He even had a tendency to play himself as being considerably less intelligent than he actually was. As a US Marshal, he could be a liaison to the American public for anything having to do with the Stargate.

Jack had been given security clearance higher than anything he'd ever imagined. He had even gone through the Stargate on more than one occasion. Jack received regular security updates from the SGC. He read them, and although Nathan Stark would never have believed it, he even understood most of the words. He had proved himself useful to the SGC on numerous occasions, and in fact, anything having to do with technology garnered through the Stargate that would affect the American Public at large had to be cleared through Jack Carter. What cemented his relationship with the SGC, however, was when he discovered what Eva Thorne was actually doing.

Jack knew about Tretonin and he knew how invaluable someone like Eva Thorne, who aged extremely slowly, would be to Stargate Command. But his morals would not allow him to simply turn her over to them. Instead, he spoke to her about it without giving away any classified details, and convinced her that it would be in her best interest to meet with them.

General Mansfield, the idiot in charge of Eureka at the time, was furious with Jack, because he wanted to arrest Eva Thorne for making him look like a fool. He tried to remove Jack from his position as Sheriff of Eureka, and in fact, Jack went along with him, knowing full well that O'Neill could countermand Mansfield's orders at any time, and probably would. O'Neill was about to do just that, until Henry Deacon, newly elected mayor of Eureka, discovered a loophole allowing Jack to keep his job. It was infinitely preferable that things be done this way rather than Mansfield, and more importantly, the people of Eureka finding out that the General had no jurisdiction over Jack. In reality, Jack answered to only two people: O'Neill, and the President of the United States. Consequently, if the SGC wanted to have Jack in Eureka, Jack was in Eureka. It really made little difference what Mansfield, or even Henry Deacon, wanted.

The difference between the two generals was striking. Mansfield would look at a battlefield and see acceptable losses, targets, and assets. O'Neill would look at the battlefield and see people. Mansfield commanded soldiers while O'Neill led people. Jack understood this. In fact, it had infuriated him when recently a loss of sixteen people had been equated to a B plus. He could just imagine O'Neill's reaction to that.

Another of Jack's friends in the SGC, was Teal'c. Teal'c was a Jaffa. He was human, but not born on Earth. Sometimes, his behavior would baffle Jack. But behind everything Teal'c did, Jack saw a fierce loyalty and devotion that was unwavering. He knew that Teal'c was just as good a warrior, and just as formidable an opponent, as his friend, Jo Lupo.

Then there was Daniel Jackson. Daniel was just as much of an egghead as anybody in Eureka. But his field of interest was archaeology and ancient languages. Daniel was a civilian, but in effect, special forces trained. In his own way he was just as much of a warrior Teal'c.

Jack turned towards home, and his thoughts turned back to Eureka. Now that Eureka was private, things could change. In fact, it was inevitable that they do, but Jack had a suspicion that things would be changing for the better.

At Global Dynamics, Jack and Allison Carter walked into the conference room. Henry Deacon was already there with his wife Grace, and across the table from him was Douglas Fargo. They all appeared to be somewhat apprehensive. Today they would be learning what direction Global Dynamics would be taking in the future. The town of Eureka had recently been purchased by Trevor Grant or, as he liked to call himself now, Trent Rockwell. But the simple fact of the matter was, there was no operating capital. Global dynamics needed a serious infusion of funds, without them it would be as closed as it would have been had it not been bought.

All four of them greeted each other, with attention being given to the fact that Douglas Fargo had been gone for several weeks. They sat down at the table just in time to stand up again as Jack O'Neill, Samantha Carter, Teal'c, and Daniel Jackson, entered the room.

O'Neill shook hands all around, then sat down and stared off into the corner of the room. He really liked all these people and he wanted things to work out to everyone's benefit. But, O'Neill only knew one of the new owners of Global. He knew what the owners had in mind, but it could be very hard getting things done with the new system that was going into place. One of the owners was O'Neill's best friend, Daniel Jackson. Daniel had inherited all of Catherine Langford's considerable wealth when she passed away, and he had used that to help Dr. Trent Rockwell purchase Eureka and Global Dynamics. Two other people had also used their personal funds in purchasing the town and facilities. They were Alec Colson, with whom O'Neill's previous dealings had all been less than positive, and Eva Thorne, with whom he had had limited dealings during her time as what was essentially an SGC lab rat.

O'Neill understood that Rockwell had 51% interest, followed by Colson with 19%, then Jackson and Thorne each having 15% ownership. However, O'Neill also knew that Jackson, Thorne, and Colson had all agreed to provide capital on the condition that an oversight committee be established to approve any and all weapon's research that might be done at Global. Rockwell had agreed, and this is what concerned O'Neill. With such a committee, it might be complicated getting the things needed for Earth's defense. And the defense of Earth was what O'Neill was concerned with. He was the head of Earth's defense, and he knew that Eureka was the best thing Earth had going for it in this respect. His problem, was that he didn't know who had been selected for the Eureka Weapons Oversight Committee. Anyone might have been selected, and if the wrong people were on the committee, they would be in trouble. Jackson had told O'Neill not to worry about it, but sometimes Jackson erred on the side of caution where defense was concerned.

While O'Neill was mulling over all of this, two more GD people entered the room: GD's head of Security, Jo Lupo, and the head of section five, Zane Donovan. O'Neill knew that the two were a couple, and honestly, that was fine with him. The closer the friendships with coworkers, the better they tended to work with each other. That is not to say that people who are romantically involved won't find each other a distraction in crunch time. But they can just as easily be a motivation for each other to get things done.

O'Neill looked at the group then at Jackson. "Daniel? Where are they?"

"They'll be here, Jack. Not everyone runs on military time you know. Sometimes people just like to be fashionably late. I've even known you to be that way yourself. Remember the importance of a certain crossword puzzle? "

O'Neill glowered at Jackson. "That's different, Daniel. I wasn't the one being made to wait then."

Just then, a group of people entered the conference room. "Hi everyone. Sorry we're late," Trent Rockwell said as he strode in. He glanced around the room. "It looks like everyone is here, so why don't we get started."

O'Neill's mouth dropped open as he saw the group entering the room. First were the other three owners of Eureka. But the group following were all known to him. As they sat down, Jackson took the lead and introduced everyone. "I'm sure that all of the Stargate team knows each of the members of the oversight committee. But for those of you in Eureka who don't know all of them, I'll make the introductions. This is Air Force Lieutenant General George Hammond, retired. He's the chairman of the Eureka Weapons Oversight Committee, or "EWOC" for short. Air Force Major General Henry "Hank" Landry, retired. Former IOA member Richard Woolsey, and current Mayor of Atlantis. No, I'm not kidding. Air Force Captain Janet Fraser MD, retired, and I believe you all know, Dr. Zoe Carter."

At Jackson's introduction, Zoe grinned and waved her hand at her friends and family seated around the room. "Hi," she said brightly.

Jack, for his part, stammered, "Zoe… how… when… wha…?! "

His wife rescued him. "Zoe! It's great to see you!"

Woolsey, the single member of the team who hadn't met Jack Carter at one time or other looked questioningly at Zoe. She caught the look and explained. "Sheriff Carter is my Dad."

Dr. Donovan asked Woolsey with a slight smirk, "Mayor of Atlantis?"

Woolsey nodded and said, "We'll come back to that in a little bit."

Hammond leaned close to O'Neill, and in a stage whisper said to him, "I hope Daniel doesn't use as many big words as he usually does, otherwise we'll be here forever." Sam stifled a laugh, Teal'c smiled (for him) broadly, and O'Neill simply nodded gravely.

"I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson. I'm here to tell you about some things which you have all been granted clearance for. General Johnathan O'Neill, or Jack as he is known, is head of Homeworld Defense. That title is granted by the Pentagon, but it is recognized by every government on Earth.

"I am going to show you a few DVDs to bring you up to speed on Stargate Command. I know some of you already have knowledge of the SGC, but not all of you do. For those of you not in the know, General O'Neill and the White House have granted each person in this room clearance to hear anything and everything known about the stargate and offworld activities. First, however, General Samantha Carter would like to say a few things.

Sam stood up and walked to the front of the room. "Thank you, Daniel. For the past several years, Global Dynamics, specifically your section five, has been given certain … artifacts from offworld … and told to figure out how they work. One of the things the SGC has always liked about the way GD has done this, is that you have always built a comparable device with earth based technology. We have found that this inevitably makes a much more stable device than one based on alien technology. Our goal in coming here and giving you clearance to know about the SGC is to facilitate this relationship. Basically, if you know why you are researching something, it will help you design better tools for their purposes." She looked at General O'Neill, then at Jackson. "I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Jackson's computer now, and he can show you the DVDs he needs to. Thank you."

Sam left the podium, and Jackson pressed a button, dimming the lights, and starting a video playing. The videos took quite some time, but they told the group what they needed about the SGC and the fighting that had been going on with the Goa'uld.

Jackson stood and went to the center of the table. He waved his hand over it, and a simulation of the Earth appeared above it. He brought his hands together above the table in a clapping gesture, and the earth shrunk and the stars of the Milky Way flew into focus and suddenly the entire galaxy seemed to be floating above the table.

"We could very soon be having some serious problems on our Earth. Over the past few years, we have been, unknown to the populace at large, at war with a group of superbeings known as 'the Ori'. They are what we call, 'ascended beings', which basically means they have no need for physical bodies. They demand and receive worship from their followers, as if they were gods." He waved his right hand, and a section of the galaxy turned red. "This is the portion of our galaxy that the Ori currently control. This is not hugely significant, but their rate of expansion is." Again, Jackson moved a hand, and a small light blinked brightly on the far side of the galaxy from the red part. "This is Earth. We project that the Ori could be here, at Earth, in five years. The Ori's model for subjugation of a planet is, attack, decimate, enslave, and brainwash into submission. Once the population of a planet starts worshiping the Ori, the Ori start to draw additional strength from this worship. This additional strength will be used to subjugate another planet, and another and another, until there is no one left to oppose them. Their ultimate goal is to develop enough strength to take on the Ancients, who are superbeings like themselves, but far more numerous."

"If they don't have corporeal bodies, how do we fight them?" Henry asked.

Sam decided to answer Henry's question. "We don't have to fight the Ori themselves. They are being kept at bay by the Ancients. We just need to keep their 'missionaries' from converting more people. That keeps the energy transfer of worship from becoming more powerful."

Jack nodded. "And by keeping the energy transfer lower, the demon people aren't able to beat the Ancients."

Jo seemed incensed. "So we're just going to let these 'Ancients' fight our war for us?"

Hammond spoke up. "It's not our war, Miz Lupo. Besides; There's really not a lot we can do to fight the Ori. Like Henry said. How can we fight someone who doesn't need a physical body and is beyond our ability to interact with?"

Jo nodded, but was still frustrated. "I'm sorry, General. I'm not used to sitting back and letting others fight for me."

"I understand completely, however, keep in mind that we're not sitting back and doing nothing. We are actively fighting on another front."

At that, Jo nodded and seemed somewhat appeased.

Rockwell looked at Henry, and at some barely noticeable sign from Henry, asked "So what can GD do for you, General O'Neill?"

"We need big honkin space guns and big honkin space ships."

Jack looked at Allison and exclaimed, "See! That's why I like O'Neill. He speaks English, not Science!"

Allison shook her head fondly, and turned to Sam. "Can we get a translation for those who don't speak 'Jack'?"

"You see how I have always been able to understand the General so easily. I grew up with his twin." Sam told her.

"Yeah. Dad always talks like that." Zoe nodded.

"I think what the General was trying to say is that we need to expand Earth's fleet," Daniel interjected. "What would be nice is if we could bring the Stargate to GD, but I don't think the Air Force would allow it."

"Why not?" Henry asked. "Just bring it here."

Jackson smiled and shook his head. "It doesn't work that way, Henry. They're kinda possessive about their gate."

"But it's not 'their' gate," Henry said. He looked at Daniel closely and saw the baffled look on his face. "You mean to tell me that you don't know?"

"Uh…. Know what?" Jackson asked.

"The gate was leased to the Air Force by Catherine Langford. Upon her death, the lease was over. Her will stated that you inherited all of the artifacts owned by her, whether in a museum or not. That included the Stargate, Daniel. It's not the Air Force's gate. It's yours." Henry saw that the group around the table seemed skeptical. "We have a copy of her will in a safe deposit box at the Bank of Eureka. She spoke to me about leaving things to you, Daniel, because she thought you would be able to make sure people used the gate for more scientific uses than the military would."

Hammond stared incredulously at Henry. Then, slowly he started to smile. "Really!" He said. "Well doesn't that just about beat all."

Samantha Carter looked at Jackson with a huge grin on her face. "Tell them you want it back, Daniel.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: There is a forum up on Compbrain1720's page where we will answer all questions in the reviews for this story. _

_ht topic/140222/100500455/1/_

_Well… I should say that we'll answer what we can._

_Standard Disclaimer - The authors would like to say that they do not own any part of Eureka! or Stargate, in any of its incarnations. We just like the stories enough to write our own fiction regarding them._

_Please Review!_

**_Chapter 2_**

After Henry surprised Daniel with the information that he was actually, legally the owner of the Stargate, Daniel decided it was time to spring a few surprises on Henry and the Global Dynamics people.

"Before we go any farther, there's someone we'd like you to meet. His people have been a valuable ally to us. We first met his people several years ago on a planet called Cimmeria. We had inadvertently destroyed a device of their construction which protected Cimmeria, and we needed to try to fix the situation. Thor, himself, fixed it."

Jackson grimaced at the memory, and Teal'c added for the benefit of those not in the know. "We only made the situation worse until Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter, with the help of a Cimmarian woman discovered a way to contact Thor."

Jack looked from Jackson to Teal'c, then back again. Then he asked his sister. "Thor? You mean the big Norse guy, wears a helmet and goes around smashing things with a hammer?"

Sam laughed at this and said, "well… I've never seen him wear… well…. Anything, let alone a helmet. As far as smashing things with a hammer… I'll leave that up to you to decide when you see him."

Jackson smiled and said matter-of-factly, "Thor developed an alter ego that was a bit different than the truth, but it was quite effective." He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. "Are you ready, supreme commander?" Jackson listened for a moment, then said, "Yes. I've given you an introduction. We're ready." He hung up the phone, and a sound and light issued from the other side of the room. Heads turned, and there were audible gasps when, what looked for all the world like a Roswell Gray, materialized in the room.

"Greetings. I am Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard Fleet."

General O'Neill stood up and approached the Gray. "Thor! Buddy! I still think you should have said, 'Take me to your leader.'"

After all introductions were made with the diminutive Norse god, O'Neill stood and said, "I think we're all here now. Henry, would you mind showing us around?"

"Certainly, General," Henry said. He was a bit taken aback by the appearance of the Asgard. He had known for several years that there were humans on different planets, and intellectually, he had known that there were aliens in the form of Goa'uld, but to meet someone like Thor… Someone who was a god to an earth culture, and to find out that he was actually a Roswell Gray. That blew him away. "If you'll all follow me, we'll see the Robotics Lab first."

As they were leaving the conference room, Zoe Carter fell into step beside her father. "This is kinda surreal, isn't it. Bet you didn't figure we'd be doing this when we had that accident and were stranded in Eureka - meeting a Gray who just happens to be Thor, the God of Thunder, and preparing for war against Super Aliens from another galaxy, did you?"

During the walk, Jack observed O'Neill chatting amiably with Thor. It was disconcerting, but Jack had known the general for several years, and his sister had a thing for him. O'Neill was a friend. Not as good as Henry was, but a very good friend nonetheless. If O'Neill was friends with Thor, then that was good enough for Jack. But it was still disconcerting.

"You're staring," his wife's voice was just above a whisper, and when he started and looked quickly at her, she continued with the smile still plastered on her face and without moving her lips. "You're staring at Thor. It's not polite." Then she smiled radiantly at him and he knew she found it just as strange as he did.

"Sorry… I…" Jack suddenly found that he didn't have the slightest idea what to say. He finally settled on, "who knows what he finds impolite!" At a very slight shake of Allison's head, coupled with a resolute frown and her staring straight ahead, Jack knew he had once again put his foot in it. He slowly turned his head the other way and looked down… And down. He had to stifle a groan when he found the enormous black eyes looking up at him.

"Greetings, Sheriff Carter. I have heard much about you and have been anticipating meeting you."

"Uhh… Yeah." Jack had to stifle another groan as he heard Ally trying desperately not to laugh out loud from his other side. The worst part of it was that his sister, General that she was, keeping stride with O'Neill, had looked back at him, eyes sparkling with merriment, with the biggest grin he had ever seen on her face.

"I believe you are experiencing, what humans would refer to as shock and awe. This is a normal occurrence when humans meet me for the first time." Thor's expression didn't change in the slightest, but Jack knew he was being teased. If he had any doubts though, they evaporated, when his sister, the General, fell to her knees and laughed herself nearly sick. Allison, his loving wife, joined her.

Zoe glanced back at him from where she had been talking with the rest of the EWOCs and said sweetly, "Practicing your diplomacy skills, Dad?"

Jack couldn't take it anymore and started laughing himself.

He was saved from anything further as they turned the corner into the robotics lab.

Henry took the lead and with a broad grin at Jack said, "This is our robotics section." As the group walked through the door, a feminine voice said, "Good Morning everyone. I'm Martha."

Henry responded, "Good morning Martha. How are you today?" As he spoke, a military attack drone rose into the air a few feet from the group, a single red light glaring menacingly from a slit in the front of its shell. "I'm doing great Dr. Deacon. And you?" Eva Thorne, who had personally experienced the drone's firepower, backed cautiously away. A couple of years before, Martha had been hacked by a remote control device, attached to her casing. This, in conjunction with some at the time, unknown, modifications to her abilities allowed Martha to breach her programming. She actually shot at the person trying to control her, at a time when he was standing beside Eva Thorne.

"I'm fine, Martha." Henry turned to the group and saw Thorne backing away. "It's ok, Miss Thorne. We've come to an agreement with Martha, and vice versa." To the group, he explained, "Martha was originally created as an attack drone for testing our VIPER system, but she quickly outgrew her programming. We found that as Martha learned, she went through a stage, very much like a human teenager. She even became self aware, and, since drones of this type are generally destroyed in testing, she… rebelled. Now, however, Martha gets along with everyone here at GD. Unless you're a smoker. She's made it her business to make sure the 'no smoking' policy of GD is adhered to."

Next, Henry turned to a table along one wall where a shroud covered form was lying. "Now I'd like to show you one of Dr. Fargo's projects." He turned to Fargo. "Would you like to explain Andy 2 to everyone, Fargo?"

Fargo wasn't prepared for speaking, but being head of GD had changed him. He was able to jump right in without a prepared speech now. "Sure Dr. Deacon." He stepped to the front of the group, and his whole demeanor became that of a lecturer. "Andy 2 is a second generation GD android. He is based on our Sheriff's Deputy Andy, who is the prototype for almost all GD androids. I have seen the specs for the Harlan type androids SG1 encountered, and while there are certain similarities inherent in all androids, Andys 1 & 2 operate in a much different way. They utilize a photonic processor coupled with a 10 kiloquad solid state hard drive for processing power and data storage."

Henry stepped back and stood by Jack and Allison while he watched Fargo continue explaining Andy 2 to the group. "You set him up," Ally said to him.

"I want him back," Henry said to her. "Holly too. They're both needed here. I thought getting him talking about Andy might get him missing it here."

"Well, he's certainly missing it, but you'll need to get Holly missing it as well. I don't think he'll come back without her, nor should he," Jack said.

Henry looked at his friend and nodded. "I agree Jack. I need to get General O'Neill to pull some strings so it looks better for her to come back here than to continue with her special project."

Jack nodded and asked, "Any idea what that is?"

"No idea. I just know Fargo said it involved travel."

They turned their attention back towards Fargo and his extremely interested audience. Sam appeared to be eager to ask a couple of questions. "Are the GD androids sentient?"

"True sentience is hard to gauge, as I'm sure you're aware, General. However, I don't think you could find anyone in Eureka who thought of Deputy Andy as anything less than an individual. He has become a friend with everyone, and while he has certain abilities that set him apart from the human population, as well as a few personality quirks, he fits in as one with them as well, if that makes any sense."

"Actually, it does," Sam said, looking at Teal'c. "Why human form robots? It makes specialization pretty well impossible," she asked Fargo.

"While Martha is certainly self-aware, her form limits what she is able to do. No offense Martha," Fargo stated.

"None taken, Douglas"

"With Andy, he is limited only by what tools can fit in his hands. He does have some extra senses that humans don't have. Built in night vision… x-ray vision, as corny as that may sound… His hearing is about as acute as a bat's. Also, we have adapted a synthetic mucus to work in Andy's olfactory system, giving him a wonderful sense of smell which is on a par with a bloodhound.

"As well, we have found that a human form robot is inherently able to integrate into the population much easier than one like, say Martha, or even my car, which has an AI. Even though I interact with my car on a daily basis and can have conversations with her, she is generally unable to interact beyond the scope of transportation.

"Because of the ability to integrate into society, an android like Andy, can learn to pick up on social cues, and blend in completely," Fargo concluded, remembering Calister Raines, and how no one had had any clue that he was an android.

"Andy is a truly remarkable… person," Rockwell said. "What changes are you making in Andy 2?"

"Andy 2 is designed around Jack's photonic processor, where Deputy Andy wasn't. We were able to modify Deputy Andy to be able to use the processor safely, but Andy 2 is designed to be able to utilize it from the get go."

Sam looked startled at Fargo's words. "Jack's photonic processor?"

Before anyone could explain, Jack spoke up. "Just a little something I worked up one day when I had some spare time. No biggie."

Sam looked completely unconvinced.

"Actually, Jack's processor sparked lots of new ideas here at GD," Henry said. "We're doing an upgrade on our main computer core based on it. If you will follow me, I'll show you the computer core and that upgrade."

The group left the robotics lab and travelled to the center of GD. They needed to each put on clean suits to enter the core. Thor was a bit of a challenge to find a clean suit for, but eventually they had him suited up as well. Here, Dr. Donovan took the lead and introduced the group to the system. He explained the quantum teleportation link to the DOD, which had been transferred to Homeworld Security, and how he felt it could benefit the SGC.

"The Stargate allows for radio frequencies to go either way through the wormhole, am I correct?" Zane asked Sam.

"Yes," she replied. "However, anything more substantial, which is just about everything, is one way only. You can only transport matter from the originating gate to the destination gate."

"Ok," Zane said. "That's what I understood Dr Jackson's DVD's to say."

He was fully into his teaching mode now. "What we're proposing is utilizing the quantum teleportation link for much greater distances. We utilize the micro wormholes inherent in quantum level physics, which means there is virtually no distance limit to how far we can transmit information. This could be set up on a planet to have continual communication without a stargate having to be open. If I know the coordinates, and relative motions of each planet, I could have a phone conversation with someone in the Andromeda Galaxy, realtime."

The next place Henry took the group to, was the hanger where Astraeus had been moved to after the fiasco with Senator Wen and Beverly Barlow. There, the speaking was taken over by Henry's wife, Grace, who was the commander of the Astraeus mission. Grace explained the ship and it's functions. The ship was exploratory, but it was also something that could be expanded on.

Fargo explained the Astraeus' engines and Zane explained the construction mites he had created to build the ship. "Basically," he explained, "you program into them the blueprints of the ship, and they will build it from the ground up. They use whatever raw materials you tell them to."

"What about security with the mites?" This was from General Landry. "We've had enough problems with replicators to where it's safe to say, none of us are very fond of nanites." Noone who had worked with the SGC looked thrilled about what Zane was saying.

Carter stepped in and explained to Zane. "Replicators are very similar to your construction mites. They, unfortunately, are independent and not under human control." He turned to Allison and Henry. "Think of Taggert's nanoids that made the multiple Starks, on steroids with each individual copy of Stark independently thinking but constantly communicating with the others, and you've got replicators."

"We're concerned about your construction mites getting out of control," General Hammond said. "What have we got to make sure that that doesn't happen?"

"Well we did lose control once. After that I made some modifications. I beefed up the security built into their programming. They can ONLY use raw materials found in a certain grid. As well, I've built a safeguard that prohibits them using any organic matter as raw material. The last safeguard is that no mite has its own power supply. Instead, I built a variant of the Tesla Wireless power transmitter which transmits power only to within a the shipyard grid. If something happens we can shut them down by killing the power. This power grid is also a security system in itself. If a mite strays outside the grid, it has no power, and will shut down immediately," Zane explained. "It's quite secure actually."

"Can you guarantee that no mite will get loose?" O'Neill asked.

"General. Not only is there the security I've mentioned, but whenever a mite manufactures a new mite from raw materials, it scans the new one before activating it. If that mite isn't identical to itself except for mac address, it destroys it and starts again. There isn't any room for variation in the programming." Zane was getting very defensive.

The EWOCs were discussing things quietly off to one side of the room. Jack could see that O'Neill and Zane were getting ready for a very heated discussion, and he decided to intervene. He nodded to O'Neill, and lightly took Zane's arm, turning him away in the process. "Zane. I understand the problems these people have with the mites. I've also seen what they can do here, and how useful they are. Let's give them time to talk about things and see what they say. Remember the problems we've had here. I know General O'Neill, and he's a good man, OK? He's also a man who won't let feeling's overrun his common sense. Neither will Hammond or Landry. They're going to think about what you've said, but you getting upset and possibly yelling at them won't help the situation, ok?"

"Jack. Trust me. I'm not getting upset," Zane said and turned back to O'Neill. With an effort, Zane said to O'Neill, "General. Would you please let me show you what my mites can do."

O'Neill looked at him for a long moment, then said. "Tell you what. You convince me that your mites are worth a try. Do that, and I'll convince the EWOCs that they're worth a try. Deal? Just remember, I'm a hard sell."

Zane nodded, and looked at Jack hard. Jack pointed at O'Neill and mouthed good man. Zane nodded, looking unconvinced, then went over to a large computer console. Sam followed, and soon the three were talking animatedly while schematics of the Astraeus twisted this way and that above the table.

Zoe walked up to her dad. "The 2Gs say if Zane can convince General O'Neill, they'll allow the mites for offworld production of ships for the SGC."

"2Gs?" Jack asked.

"The two generals," Zoe said with a smile. All four of the other EWOCs are very leary about the mites. I can understand where they're coming from, but I know Zane. He's irreverent, but he cares. He has built in lots of safeguards, and he knows what he's doing. Strange, but I think my knowledge of Zane might have made the others willing to listen regardless of what they have experienced before."

Jack smiled at his daughter. "You're part of something big here, Zoe. I'm proud of you."

Zoe regarded her father. "I always knew you were playing dumb with some things." Carter grinned broadly at that, and his daughter continued. "You were good at it, which is kinda a back handed compliment, I admit. But I understand why you couldn't tell me about the stargate. That's something else."

"You've seen it?"

"We went to the alpha site."

Jack nodded knowingly, and she asked, "You've been there too?"

"Yeah." Jack nodded again. "Did it seem to take a long time to travel through the gate?"

She shuddered. "Forever!"

He laughed out loud at that. "Me too."

Suddenly from across the room came O'Neill's voice. "Well why didn't you say that at the beginning? Would have saved us all this arguing."

O'Neill came back across the room and spoke to the rest of the group. "Dr. Donovan says that one of his mites can replicate itself quickly enough to build an army - he used the word community, but it's an army - and build a ship the size of Astraeus in a week. An already established army could do it in half that time. Given that we need ships quickly, I'll allow offworld production of ships with mites." He turned to Zane. "I'm a hard sell, but I can be convinced. Don't let them screw up, Donovan." Then he grinned at Zane.

Henry motioned for people to follow him, and as they headed towards the Planetary Defense section of GD, he and Sam started to talk. "You know. We've had this section, but until today, I never really believed we would need to use any of the things made in it."

Sam smiled at him. "Dr. Deacon. You'd be surprised how many devices have been built here in Eureka that we have found invaluable offworld. My brother has never broken promises to keep secret anything he's seen or heard of in Eureka, but he has told me to check out research on certain things. For example, a few years ago he told me to check out research on phasing technology. You see, we came across a highly sophisticated device built by Merlin, and..."

"Merlin? I remember in Dr. Jackson's videos, he said that many of our ancient legends were based on the reality of the Goa'uld and Ancients. Not to mention Norse Gods. So when you say Merlin, do you mean...? " He trailed off.

"I mean Merlin of King Arthur legend fame. Yes. We even got to meet him."

"That would be... incredible!" Henry said. "But you mentioned Jack passed on some ideas for research to you. You mean Jack has known about the Stargate for years?"

Sam actually blushed at that. "Yes. Jack first went through the stargate about the time he moved to Eureka, but he had known about it and seen it in operation about three years before that."

"So when he asked me, years ago, if there were really 'little green men'..."

"He already knew the answer to that, yes."

Henry started laughing at that. "He really pulled one over on me."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, he had never seen Thor until today."

At the Planetary Defense division, the group was introduced to Dr. Irvin Thatcher and he explained patiently, as if to children, the workings of his Irradiated Uranium Particle Beam.

Sam had seen the specs for the IUPB, and had even modified them a bit for use on a ship. "If you bounced that back to earth it could incinerate the atmosphere."

"Yes, my dear. It was originally designed for mutually assured destruction. If you were going to use it," he said, knowing that she probably would, "I wouldn't use it near a planetary atmosphere."

"I'll keep that in mind, Sir," she said.

Next, they went to the non-lethal weapon's lab run by Dr. Parrish. While most people found Parrish' attitude abrasive, they would also admit that he was brilliant. As he was lecturing them on several of his accomplishments, Sam commented to Woolsey, "we really have to lock him and Rodney in a room together. We might just get rid of them both that way."

When Parrish showed them his iFire, or 'firefly' as he wanted to call it, Sam was reluctantly impressed. "That would be very useful on ships." O'Neill agreed. Fires were bad on any ship, where there was no place to go to get away from it, but on a spaceship, if the fire got through the hull, there was only the cold vacuum of space waiting to claim the crew, and the chances of being saved in that the limited amount of time a spacesuit would afford someone was as close to zero as you could get without actually being zero.

When they left the lab, O'Neill turned to Sam. "Is it my imagination, or is that guy as full of himself as McKay?"

Sam drew her mouth into a thin line and nodded. Then she started laughing as Teal'c said, "Dr. Parrish appears to possess an ego almost as big as a system lord's."

The next stop on their tour left the group completely speechless. They had never before seen anything like the body printer. Allison explained how it worked and they even got to meet Holly, Douglas Fargo's fiance. "Dr. Marten's mind was active inside a computer, but her body had died. We printed her a body that is controlled by a computer utilizing Jack's photonic processor. Her body is printed based on her own genetic code. We can print any body based on any genetic code. The computer controlling the printer will extrapolate how the body should be laid out, and print it."

Thor was extremely fascinated by this technology. "We will need to talk about this in more depth, Dr. Carter," he told Allison.

Allison also showed them the rest of the medical labs, where Zoe and Janet Fraiser were fascinated by everything they saw. "I wish we had had this type of technology at the SGC," Janet remarked.

Once they were back in the conference room, Jackson told them, "Now, Sam has a gift for you, Dr. Deacon."

Sam stood up and picked up an ordinary briefcase. She opened it and pulled out a foam wrapped item. Gingerly she unwrapped it as she carried the object to Henry. "This is a ZPM, or Zero Point Module. We would like you to study it, and figure out how to duplicate it's abilities. Once you do that, you can power all of GD from that one device. I'll show you how it works once we're done with the tours."

"Well. No time like the present as we're done with the tour," Henry said, interested in how this one small crystal could power all of GD.

O'Neill stood up. "We're not quite done, Dr. Deacon. We have something to show you now."

General O'Neill lead the group outside to the parking lot in front of GD. He dialed a number on his phone and spoke into it. "We're ready here." Then he hung up and put his hands behind his back. He turned to Henry and said simply, "Wait for it." Within ten seconds, there was a noise and the faint thump of something setting down on the ground beside them. Then, a small craft became visible as it's hatch opened.

O'Neill turned to the group from where he'd been watching as the invisible became visible. "Ok, everyone. Climb aboard. This would be our ride."

When the Eureka group hesitated, Jack Carter started walking towards the 'jumper'. "where are we going?" he asked O'Neill.

"Atlantis," the General said, matter-of-factly.

At that, Zane started to laugh. Jo nudged him in the ribs and when he complained, she stated simply, "The General isn't laughing, Zane. I don't think he's kidding."

"No," said O'Neill as everyone climbed aboard the jumper. "Sorry it's a bit tight for so many people, but we're not going very far. Only to Lake Archimedes." He indicated the pilot of the jumper. "This is Colonel John Sheppard. He's lived in Atlantis for the past eight years."

"Hi," Sheppard nodded and smiled at the group. "Hey, Zane. Good to see you," he said, as he closed the hatch and made the ship invisible before lifting it off the ground.

Zane just stood there with his mouth hanging open.

Henry looked at O'Neill as if he was crazy. "You're trying to tell me that Atlantis is in Lake Archimedes?"

"Well... It hasn't always been. We only brought it here last week," O'Neill said. "Daniel? A little help here, please?"

Jackson made his way up beside O'Neill. "Always need my help on the tough stuff, huh Jack?"

"I can make it on my own," O'Neill said. When Jackson looked skeptical, he added, "Sometimes."

"No problem, Jack," Jackson said. He turned to the group and raised his voice a bit. "Those of you who have been in the know with the Stargate program are aware that several years ago, we discovered Atlantis. We found that the city had originally been in Antarctica. However, the Ancients who built the city left Earth five million years ago. They took the city to the Pegasus Galaxy and set it down on a world known as Lantea. When we found the city, it was submerged under an ocean on Lantea. So, the legends of Atlantis were true. Only, instead of being submerged underwater here on Earth, Atlantis had been submerged on a different planet, in a different galaxy.

"The city is what we call a city ship. It is completely self contained, and normally sits on an ocean or some body of water. However, if the need arises, it is capable of space travel, and has an incredibly powerful drive, although it uses a very large amount of power when in flight. We brought Atlantis to Earth three years ago, when the Wraith, a species from the Pegasus Galaxy, were attacking. It was sitting on the ocean just outside San Francisco Bay for a month, cloaked. For the rest of the time, it has been sitting in a caldera lake on an island owned by Alec Coulson."

As Jackson was talking, Jo asked Zane, "So you know Sheppard? Your mouth is still hanging open. What's the story?"

"John Sheppard and I grew up together. When we were kids, we were the best of friends. I wasn't sure where he had gone."

When Jo failed to respond, Zane glanced at her, but her eyes were captivated by something outside the ship. Zane looked ahead, and his jaw dropped open.

In front of the little ship was a magnificent city. It had spires reaching toward the heavens, and what were obviously landing pads, reaching out from the central part of the city, sitting like lily pads on the surface of Lake Archimedes. Sheppard piloted the craft around the city, so the Eurekans could see it in all it's grandeur. He swung the little ship around a balcony where two people were standing, observing the jumper as it came in for a landing. The jumper stopped and hovered a moment, facing the balcony and the room beyond it. The two people on the balcony, a man with long dark hair, and a petite woman with light hair, waved. Then the jumper rose straight up. It moved into a bay above the room they had seen beyond the balcony and come to rest. The door in the rear opened, and O'Neill, after thanking Sheppard, stepped out onto the floor of the city.

They were in Atlantis.


	3. Chapter 3

_We're posting this a day early because of American Thanksgiving tomorrow. _

_We do not own either Stargate, or Eureka._

_Check out the author's profile pages for the link to answers to review questions. _

_Please review!_

_**Chapter 3**_

Standing outside the jumper was Rodney McKay. He was, for lack of a better way of putting it, Chief Engineer of Atlantis. If anyone knew how to work with Lantean technology, it was Rodney McKay. As the GD people stepped out of the jumper, they stared around them in awe. Here was a city that was built in a completely alien way. Yet it wasn't alien. The proportions were all normal for humans. In fact, the jumper that they had flown in was clearly built for someone with a human physique. Dr. McKay stepped forward. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you," he said smoothly. "I've heard a lot about GD, and I've seen some of the technology that's come out of here. Some of it is really quite impressive."

O'Neill gave McKay a dirty look, and General Carter stepped forward. "Some of it, Rodney?"

McKay shrugged. "The phasing vest is cool." He paused and then shrugged as if he didn't know what else to say.

Doctor Deacon held out his hand, rescuing McKay from his own arrogance. "I'm sure living in Atlantis makes even the extraordinary seem mundane."

O'Neill shook his head. "No, Dr. Deacon. Rodney is just an arrogant jerk, but he's pretty smart, which is why he's still here."

Teal'c nodded sagely and said dryly, "Indeed, O'Neill. If one were to buy Rodney McKay for what they thought of him, and sell him for what he thought of himself, that individual would never have to work for money as long as they were to live."

Colonel Sheppard stepped out of the jumper at that moment and quipped, "I don't think such a transaction would be legal because of the consequences for the poor person who bought him."

McKay shook his head. "You people are unreal. I've just met these people from Global Dynamics, and you're already running me down to them."

Sheppard started to say something, but O'Neill held up his hand. "Rodney's right. We shouldn't run him down like this. We'll let the people from GD form their own opinions regarding him. It shouldn't take too long for them to come to the same conclusions we have."

Rodney started to say something again, but this time O'Neill stopped McKay from commenting. "Whaddaya want, McKay? I'm not running you down now. I'm letting you do it yourself." With that, O'Neill started away from the jumper, and McKay had no choice but to follow, stewing.

As they stepped away from the jumper, the Eureka people looked around them in awe. Fifteen jumpers were arrayed in a circular pattern on two levels. Rodney explained that the jumper bay was directly above the gate room, and that the jumpers were designed to fit through the eye of a stargate. "When we want to take a jumper through, we lower it to the gateroom. Each jumper has a DHD built into the control console, so they can even go through a space gate and return safely."

He led the way down to the gate room, so they could see what he was talking about. When Carter saw the Stargate, he commented on the difference between it and the one at SG1. McKay nodded, "Yes. This stargate has no moving parts, unlike it's Milky Way Galaxy equivalent. The dialup sequence is much faster as well. It's a next generation stargate, however, it is completely compatible with the Milky Way Stargate network. We can receive incoming wormholes right here. Or, we can open a wormhole and send people anywhere we choose. At the moment, the SGC has orders to let us receive incoming, so they've powered down. Only one stargate can be active at a time on any given planet. Actually, this stargate will supercede any Milky Way equivalent."

Henry Deacon and Fargo were captivated by the stargate. Zane was trying to be nonchalant about it, but he was failing miserably at that. "So you can open a wormhole to anywhere in our galaxy from here?" He asked.

"Not exactly, Dr. Donovan," McKay said. "We can only open a wormhole to another stargate. However, there are thousands of stargates on thousands of different worlds here in our galaxy, and thousands more in the Pegasus Galaxy."

Allison had been slowly walking towards the gate, but at McKay's words, she stopped. "You mean to tell me that a person can walk through that gate and be in another galaxy?"

"Yes, Dr. Carter. That's how we first travelled to Atlantis. Actually, Dr. Deacon, you'd be very interested to see how our wormhole drive works. It's very similar in operation to a stargate, but we can move the entire cityship through the wormholes generated by it."

Fargo's shoulders slumped, and his features took on a downcast demeanor as he said, "It looks like I'm out of a job then. That would make the Astreaus look like a snail by comparison."

Mr. Woolsey stepped up beside Fargo, who was still facing the Gate. "Actually, Dr. Fargo, we've only used the wormhole drive once, and it was deemed to be something we didn't want to use again until a lot more study had been done on it. It almost destroyed Atlantis. It's very unstable. We were hoping that you and Dr. Deacon would work with Dr. McKay and Dr. Carter to try to fix it. We'd very much like to be able to use it again."

Fargo looked surprised for a moment, but recovered quickly. "Of course! I'd be happy to help with it."

Woolsey smiled at that, and then turned to the rest of the group. "And now, I'd like to show you Atlantis. I think you'll be somewhat…. Impressed."

The group left the gate room and took a meandering tour of the accommodations in the city. They then made their way to the medical center where they were startled to meet Rodney McKay's wife, who was the Doctor in charge. O'Neill said in an aside to Carter, "We're really not sure what she sees in him, but to each his or her own, ya know?"

Carter nodded and responded, "Some people would say the same of Allison and me though."

O'Neill nodded. "You've got a point there."

Carter did a double take, then looked injured. "Well you don't have to agree with me!"

O'Neill looked startled, and as Carter looked away, he smiled broadly. The smile vanished as Carter looked back. O'Neill was all innocence as Carter asked, "So what does Sam see in you?"

Sam had been watching, and as her brother placed O'Neill on the hotseat regarding her, she blushed and looked back at Jennifer McKay, who was explaining some of her instruments to Allison and Zoe. She did, however, steal a glance back at O'Neill a couple of minutes later. His mood was still good, but as she caught his eyes, he became a bit introspective. She looked away, so as not to embarrass him, and as she did so, she had the distinct impression that she was being watched. Her head snapped around, almost involuntarily, as she looked for her observer. There was nothing there. Then, the feeling dissipated. No… It wasn't gone, but it had receded, as if it had known that she discovered it, and had hid itself away. She shuddered, and pulled herself back to reality.

A bit later, they came to the ZPM room, and O'Neill enjoyed watching as Henry, Zane, and Fargo crowded around to see the small, golden glowing power supplies. It was Grace Deacon, however, who gave voice to all of their awe as she gazed at one of the ZPMs. "That one unit can supply enough power to hold back an ocean and still supply enough power for daily life in the city. That's incredible!"

Jo Lupo had been hanging back on the fringes of the group watching with interest as they toured the jumper bay, gate room, infirmary, and then the ZPM room. All of that was incredibly fascinating, yes, but it was all up Zane's alley. Then, they arrived at the drone storage facility. Jo had watched the videos as Dr. Jackson explained how ancient technology worked, including the ancient gene, and the "chairs" that the gene allowed someone to control. She had even noticed that as Colonel John Sheppard flew the jumper, he touched no controls. Now, her attention was captivated by the racks of drones. Like one in a trance, she slowly moved to one of the drones and tentatively reached out to touch it. She ran her hand almost lovingly over the smooth surface as Mr. Woolsey explained the defenses of his city.

"One drone can take out multiple targets. Often, the person controlling them will simply ram a drone through multiple ships. In battles with the wraith, with a fully charged ZPM, I've seen Colonel Sheppard take out as many as twelve wraith darts and a hive ship with a single drone," he said.

Sheppard shrugged his shoulders and commented, "I targeted the reactor core. As long as the drone still functions, it's useful. They are incredibly responsive and agile. They can change directions almost as fast as you can tell them to."

Jo was enthralled. "What's the power source?"

McKay answered her. "Each drone has a pulse/wave engine powered by a mini ZPM." Jo shrugged her shoulders and made a 'give me more' gesture as she shook her head.

McKay gave a long suffering sigh as he prepared to lecture. "The pulse/wave engine utilizes a laser which shoots pulses of energy into a small bit of fuel. When the fuel is converted to energy, the shields around the combustion chamber inhibit the energy from being expended. As more and more fuel is converted to energy, it creates a warping of space, which is able to propel the drone. By altering the location of the warping inside the combustion chamber, we can change the direction of the drone."

"I see," Jo said.

"Sure you do," Rodney quipped. " Then you can let me know when you have some improvements to incorporate into it."

Zane had been quietly talking to Sheppard in the back of the group, but at McKay's implied sneer at his fiance's intelligence, his head snapped up and the color drained from his face. Sheppard saw his reaction and quietly asked, "Did McKay just set a date with destiny?"

Zane looked his friend in the eye and said, "Let's just say if Jo were to pick a fight with Thor's legend, I'd place my money on her."

Sheppard nodded solemnly. "Then I'd say she needs to have a sparring match with our Teyla."

Jo stiffened at McKay's words, but didn't say anything about it. Allison looked at her husband who was simply shaking his head. As the group left the drone room, Allison took Jack's hand and said in a low voice. "Now we won't even get to know McKay before Jo kills him."

Jack shook his head. "That's ok. He reminds me too much of Parrish. I don't think I want to get to know him."

Sam and O'Neill fell into step beside the Carters. Allison took note of the fact that O'Neill's hand was lightly on her sister-in-law's back as well.

"I kinda noticed the resemblance between the two when we met Dr. Parrish. I'd be afraid of the two in the same room. Their ego's would suffocate anyone unlucky enough to be there with them," O'Neill commented.

Jack Carter nodded enthusiastically, and had to bite his tongue to keep from mentioning Nathan Stark, Allison's late ex-husband.

Samantha leaned over to her brother and whispered, "Was Nathan really as bad?"

"Worse!" he said, then stopped in his tracks. "Wait a minute, Sam. I didn't say anything!"

"And if you hadn't said anything just now, no one would have been the wiser," she countered.

All four of the group had stopped now, as the rest of the tour continued up the corridor. "Did I miss something?" O'Neill asked.

Samantha looked her brother in the eye and he clearly heard her ask, "Shall we tell them?" in his mind, although her mouth didn't move.

He nodded, and in her turn she heard, "We may as well, now. You go ahead."

"Recently, Jack and I have found we can communicate, …. Well... telepathically."

O'Neill looked concerned. "How recently?"

Samantha took a deep breath. "For about the last two years." At O'Neill's sharp glance, she hurried on. "Jack and my security clearance are about the same, General."

"I'm not worried about that kind of security clearance, General," O'Neill stressed her title since she had used his. "There are other things he definitely does not have clearance for."

At Samantha's blush, Allison was very glad that she wasn't a fair haired blonde like her sister-in-law. The crimson color in Sam's cheeks left no doubt whatsoever of the type of clearance her brother lacked.

Sam glared at Jack the General. "And if you hadn't said anything, no one would have been the wiser on that either. Normally Jack and I have to intend to communicate with each other."

Allison asked, innocently enough, "What do you mean by normally?"

Jack Carter turned to his wife. "Unless we're really emotional about something..." He realized this was not helping. "I mean we have to get excite... What I mean is..." He stopped. He was going to have a hard time digging his way out of this.

Allison confirmed his fears. "You're digging deeper, not out."

He nodded. "I know."

She nodded with him, a small smile playing across her lips. "Uh huh… Couch tonight?"

He nodded again. "I figured." He turned and started slowly walking toward the group that had stopped several yards up the corridor. The others followed.

The next stop on the itinerary was the docks. These were enormous pads arrayed like lily pads around the central spires of the city.

When the tour was complete, they came back to the gate room. When they all filed in, Mr. Woolsey answered a few questions about the city, then he turned things over to Samantha Carter. She stepped forward and waited until everyone was paying attention to her.

"Several years ago, we traveled to a planet that had been uninhabitable for eleven thousand years. Even though it wasn't habitable by organic beings, there was a... person... there. He was an android whose creator had download his consciousness into, when the planet had ceased to support organic life. Harlan, as we found his name to be, had been tending the machinery that supported his mechanical life for those eleven thousand years. Harlan made duplicates of us to help him, and to keep him company. We left the duplicates of us there, but they were destroyed on another occasion. We have since communicated with Harlan, and have negotiated a treaty to build a shipbuilding complex there. Now, the complex is completed, and is ready to start production."

O'Neill stepped forward, and Samantha deferred to him. "Until such time as we can transport Dr. Jackson's stargate to your section five in Global Dynamics, Atlantis will remain here in Lake Archimedes, as a means of transportation to Altair, as Harlan's planet is called. We would like both Doctor Deacons, Doctor Fargo, and Doctor Donovan to work closely with General Carter, who is in charge of the Altair shipyards, and Doctor McKay in improving the design of our 305, henceforth to be called, the GD-305. As well, personally, I would like to see Doctor Donovan's mites used to improve production speed on the GD-305. I think they can be a real asset to the production facilities there."

Fargo raised his hand tentatively. "Uh, General O'Neill... I don't know about the others, but I really don't want to be duplicated. Uh... We've had some experience with that and I know I really didn't like it."

"Not to worry, Dr. Fargo. Harlan isn't in the android making business anymore. He's learning the shipbuilding trade," O'Neill reassured him.

Again, Fargo raised his hand. "General O'Neill. Also... I really think Doctor Marten would be an asset to the team."

Samantha laughed softly at that, as did her brother. O'Neill looked at Sam who nodded affirmatively. He gestured to her, and she answered. "Dr. Marten is very welcome on the team, Dr. Fargo. I would love to hear any input she has. I know she's quite a scientist."

"And now, everyone. We'd like to show you Altair."

Mr. Woolsey nodded to the control room on the balcony, and the gate came alive. There was a gasp from several of the GD people when the wormhole flashed momentarily into the room, then as it stabilized into what looked like a pond in the middle of the ring, the anticipation became palpable. Each of the people in the room had dedicated their lives to discovery of one type or another. Even Sheriff Carter who tried to discover the truth. None of the GD personnel expected to be leaving Earth that morning, but they welcomed the opportunity to see another world. General Carter and Rodney stepped through the eye and disappeared, followed by Sheppard and the man and woman who had been standing on the balcony waving when they approached the city in the jumper. They had been introduced briefly as Teyla and Ronan.

Allison looked at Jack Carter, who nodded reassuringly. Zoe grinned broadly at her father, and stepped eagerly forward. Only Fargo held back for a moment. "Does it hurt?"

Sheriff Carter stepped towards the gate, then turned to him. "Oh, come on, Fargo. I've gone through before."

Fargo hesitated. "Yes, but you are always doing sheriffy things. You're used to risking your life. I'm not."

"Oh... Like you don't risk your life every time you push a button you know nothing about."

Grace Deacon held out her hand to Fargo. "You know, Doug. I don't know what it feels like, but SG1 has gone through literally hundreds of times and they're all ok. I want to see what's on the other side of that gate. Don't you?"

Fargo stood still, undecided for a moment, then nodded, and lunged forward. With a yell of "Bonzai!" he leaped through the gate and was gone.

O'Neill stood still for a moment staring at the gate. Then he looked towards the Sheriff. "Is he always that way?"

Carter nodded. "Yeah. He's a... He's Fargo." He shrugged his shoulders and stepped through the gate with his wife at his side. He honestly couldn't think of anything else to say or do.


	4. Chapter 4

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_Please review. We will be resuming our normal Thursday upload schedule next week, after life, the universe, and everything settles down. Somewhat. We hope._

_**Chapter 4**_

Jack Carter emerged from the Stargate and he was cold. He turned to his right, where Ally stood. She was shivering, and rubbing her upper arms.

"Brrr! Is it... Is it always like... like this?" she asked, gasping because of the cold.

"No. I've never felt that before." He put his arms around her. "I'll help warm you up."

She smiled up at him and put her head on his shoulder.

Jack looked over to where Fargo was sitting on the steps in front of the gate. He was rubbing his forehead. Jack asked the obvious question. "What happened, Fargo?"

"I shouldn't have dived. I hit my head on the floor when I came out. To top it off, I'm freezing. Don't they believe in heat here?"

"It's seventy two degrees in the gateroom, Dr. Fargo." This was Samantha. "When we use Atlantis' gate, you always come out the other side freezing. We think it's because of the differences in the Pegasus Galaxy gates."

"That was_ amazing!_" It was Henry. "I want to see any information you have on how these gates work!"

McKay looked at Henry from where he was on his back scrutinizing the crystals inside the DHD. "I'd be glad to show you everything I have on stargates, Dr. Deacon. As a matter of fact, If you'd like to see it, I'll be glad to point out a few of the more significant parts of this DHD."

"What are you doing, Rodney?" Samantha asked.

"I'm tired of being a popsicle every time I travel. I'm seeing if I can figure out why that gate worked just fine in Pegasis and not now!"

Henry, Fargo, and Zane were on the floor beside Rodney in a flash, and he was happily pointing out the crystalline memory of the DHD, as well as the gate power source.

Grace watched, and was taking in what McKay was telling the three men as well, without getting down on the dusty floor.

"_Comtraya!_"

A shortish, balding man came hurrying to the now deactivated gate where the group was clustered. He was smiling and looked absolutely thrilled to see everyone. He stopped before O'Neill and repeated what was obviously a greeting. As he did so, he clapped his hands and then spread his arms wide. O'Neill rolled his eyes, but then repeated the gesture and word.

"O'Neill! It is wonderful to see you again!"

"Hello, Harlan. How's it going?"

"Fine, O'Neill. Fine!" Harlan looked around, saw Sam, Teal'c and Dr. Jackson and went to greet each of them in turn. Introductions were made with the Global Dynamics people and then Harlan started off to the new shipbuilding productions. On the way, he pointed out different pieces of machinery. The most recognizable to the GD teams were the crates of GD equipment.

"So this is where the equipment for the prototype Photologic Processor went?" Henry asked astounded. It was a brand new breakthrough that he and Zane made by merging the Logic Diamond core of GD and Jacks phototonic processor. The first prototype showed a four hundred percent increase in calculations per nanosecond.

"Thats right. The Core will be running the entire facility in a few weeks." Captain Walter Harriman said walking up to the group. "Generals, Doctors, Colonels, Ma'am, Sir's."

"Walter." General O'Neill said shaking the hand of Altair's chief engineer. "How goes the refit?"

"Very good sir. We're working on refitting the facilities geothermal power core using the designs that Doctor Zelenka found in the Atlantis Database. Once that's done, the facility will have the power to run the photologic core."

"Excellent. How is the rest of the facility?"

"Well, Harlan has shown us the original schematics and we are working on refitting the base to the original layout. Then we will start the heavy duty lifting bots on expanding the facility.

"Great. Now let's go see the hanger."

Jack quietly commented to his sister, "I thought you were in charge here."

Sam laughed. "It's Harlan's place, but he'll let us remain in charge of our own people. And he's letting me show you around the shipyards."

As if in response to what Sam said, Harlan stopped in front of a large door. He beamed at the group. "And now, I'll let Dr. Carter take over. This is quite impressive, and they're in her purview."

Sam walked to the front of the group and pushed a button beside the door. The door slid open and they were looking down into a vast bay, almost two miles across. Massive ships sat cradled in even more massive gantries. The group walked forward onto a balcony. Fargo was intrigued with the ships being built. "They look like the Astraeus!"

"They're much bigger though," Grace commented.

Fargo looked around for a staircase. It was obvious that he wanted to get an up close look at the ships. He didn't see one, but as he started to ask Dr. Carter where it was he noticed that the ships seemed larger. He also was starting to feel a breeze on his face. The balcony was moving closer to the nearest of the ships, and picking up speed.

"These ships are the GD-305s," Sam said. "Five are in production now. The class will be called _Astraeus_."

Grace asked, "What are the ships names?"

"At the moment, they're unnamed. That will be up to Global Dynamics."

Jack took a deep breath and let it out. Then he said, "One should be called the _Nathan Stark_."

Henry looked at Jack with raised eyebrows. Then he saw Jacks face and the determination there. He nodded his approval and said, "I agree. That's a great idea."

Allison looked over at her husband with a grateful look on her face. "Thanks Jack," she said. "That's really sweet of you."

"Yeah... well... his ego would probably say that wasn't enough to just name a ship after him."

Allison laughed. "You're probably right, Jack. But it's the thought that counts anyway."

Jack, while not saying it, thought that nothing he ever did counted to Nathan.

He heard a laugh in his mind and realized that he had projected a thought to Sam unwittingly again. "_But that's not true, Jack. You told me Nathan asked you to look after Ally when he died. Apparently he knew you could and would do that. That counted with him big time_."

Jack nodded and thought about what Sam had _said_. It was true, he supposed. He was even looking after Stark's daughter as if she was his own.

The group had come close to the first of the ships and the platform was circling the ship. General Carter explained what had been done with the basic _Astraeus_ design to turn it into the 305.

"Each ship is five times larger than one of our BC-304s. We have placed several weapons on each wingtip, facing fore and aft. We have installed an Asgard hyperdrive for now, but we would like Drs. Fargo and Deacon to review the design specifications and see if they have any ideas. I know _Astraeus_ has a good engine that you planned on using when you arrived at Titan. Perhaps a variation of that engine might work here." The platform now stopped at what was clearly an airlock. The door slid into a recess, and then to the right while the railing retracted into the floor of the platform. General Carter led the way into the ship.

As they walked through the hallway they saw the silver gray colors used in the American Navy. Sam led the way into the Bridge where she stopped at a table and pressed a few buttons activating a hologram displaying the _Astraeus Class_. As they watched, she typed a few things and a name appeared on the hull of the ship.

"This is the _Nathan Stark_. She is 1125 meters long, 475 wide and 375 high. The lower hanger bay is a cross between a cargo bay or a hangar bay for 302's, Drone Fighters, or even a 304." Sam then spun the hologram and focused on the wings. "On each wing there are six different energy guns. On the top and bottom are two Asgard Plasma Beams (APB), two GD Molecular Bond Disrupters (MBD), and two Antimatter Core Rail Guns (ACR).

"The nose has Dr. Thatcher's Irradiated Uranium Particle cannon. It is a fixed gun, but the _Astraeus_ class is very maneuverable using the Gravity Engine developed a few years ago by GD. For those of you not in the know, S.A.R.A.H. developed the gravity drive to take advantage of Dark Matter. It selectively increases or decreases gravity before or behind the ship, depending on which is necessary."

Jack did a double take at his sister. "You mean my _house_ designed the engines for this ship?"

Sam smiled and nodded as she went on. "Some of them. Lastly there are twelve VIPER fixtures stationed around the ship. These are placed two on the top and bottom of each wing, two on the top, and two on the bottom main hull. For those not in the know, the VIPER is a hybrid kinetic and energy weapon. It was designed by GD a few years ago.."

"Now for the internal ship systems." The hologram changed again showing the insides of the ship. "There are several science labs and research areas. But they are minimal since this is a warship. However, in peace time, the main hanger could be converted to science use with a minimum of modifications.

"These" Sam pointed out dozens of small ports on the hull. "are launch tubes for Drone Fighters. The 305 carries 1,000 of the Drones developed for GD by Doctor Edison."

"Martha?" Jack asked his sister incredulously.

"Yes they are based on the design of Martha. However they aren't sentient like she is. That one surprised us. We weren't aware of that aspect of her. The drones have been modified to work in space, and the weapons have been increased in power thanks to the liquid naquadah power cell."

"How are they controlled?" Dr. Fargo asked.

"They can work independently or they can be controlled by the ships computers or a control chair. The drones are highly intelligent. They always work in quartets. Instead of giving individual drones an assignment, orders are given to a quartet, and the drones select their own targets and plan their own strategies and tactics. This also has the benefit of redundancy. If one drone is taken out (something I assure you is not easy, but possible) three others are there to take up the slack."

"Do the fighters work with the F-302's." John shepherd asked Sam. He had previously tested the ability of the control chair to control the drone fighters.

"Yes they can. They can work very well as wingmen. I tested the system on the Odyssey. Each 302 has four D-Fighters as wingmen to provide support." John and Cam both loved the idea of a 302 having D-Fighters as wingmen. John was impatiently waiting for the Daedalus to have the systems installed. He was dreaming of using the D-Fighters against Wraith Darts. Rodney however doubted the plan.

"How will you run all of these drones. The computers on the 304s can't run that many drones. I know. I helped design them."

"I know that, Rodney. That's why the computers are two of GDs photologic processor cores. Both working in conjunction at less than an estimated twenty five percent of their total ability during combat." Sam was looking at Rodney who nodded agreeing that the new processor would work.

"Lastly the ship is powered by an Lantean Powercore using a superheavy element for fuel. We recently discovered how to synthesize the element. It is forty percent more powerful than an Asgard Neutrino Ion Generator. And thanks to our raid of Asura, several years ago, we have been able to reverse engineer the entire generator. And because of the greater power we can build Lantean Conformal shields used on the Aurora class.

Suddenly, a signal sounded. Sam reached over and pressed a button on the table. "_This is Vala. Permission to come aboard?_"

Sam smiled and answered. "Permission granted."

A moment later, in a corner of the room, the air shimmered and a dark haired woman materialized. She walked to Dr. Jackson's side, and whispered in his hear. Jackson caught the attention of O'Neill. The General excused them and they left the room. Teal'c and Sam exchanged looks. This was not good.

The three left the bridge and went to a small briefing room off the to one side.

"What is it, Vala?"

"General. I've been asked by Chekov to tell you about some intelligence from the Tok'Ra. It appears as though the Ashen are on the move. There are rumors of them planning an attack on Earth. Apparently, they are trying a different tactic since their normal 'modus operandi' didn't work with Earth."

"Is there any idea what they're trying?" O'Neill asked.

"No, Sir. There's not."

O'Neill stood motionless for a moment, looking at the floor. Finally he looked up at Vala. "That's not much to go on," he said to her.

"No, it's not. But General Chekov thought you should know."

"Thank you, Vala. I appreciate it." O'Neill stood up and headed toward the door. He stopped at the door and looked back at Vala and Jackson. Neither had made any move to follow, so O'Neill simply said, "See ya, kids" and left the room.

Jackson watched Vala for a moment. He knew what was coming. It had become a dance that they went through regularly.

But it didn't come. She was looking towards the floor. Suddenly, she turned away, and stood, shoulders heaving. He realized she was crying. "Vala?" his voice was very soft. She continued to shudder for several moments and he didn't interrupt again. Finally, the shudders slowed and he spoke her name again. "Vala? What's wrong?"

She slowly turned to face him. "It never ends, Daniel. Just one battle after another. One war after another. I'm tired of it, I guess."

He reached out and put his arms around her, drawing her close to him. "I am too, Vala. I wish things would change. Maybe they will, now that we're getting Global Dynamic's direct help."

She pushed back from him a bit and looked directly into his eyes. "There's one thing we could change, Daniel. We could get married." She was teasing, but there was a wish that he would agree.

"Ok," he said simply.

She was prepared for his normal decline of her offer, and it took her a moment to realize what he said. "Did you say 'Ok?'"

"Yes."

"To my suggestion that we get married?"

"Yes, I did."

She paused for a moment. She had been prepared for resuming their normal dance of her teasing him, and him pretending to be uncomfortable. She decided that it was a new tack he was taking. "So should it be a big wedding or a small one? We should invite all of our friends, the President… Who else?"

"I'm serious, Vala."

"So am I," she went on brightly, hardly missing a beat. "What about Jonas? The Nox…." She stopped and the smile left her face. She looked puzzled. "What's going on, Daniel?"

"We've been through so much together and I just realized that I love you and would like to spend the rest of my life with you."

She wasn't sure what to say to this. "Daniel, I'm the one who teases you, not the other way around."

"I'm not teasing you, Vala. I'm being honest."

He suddenly realized that Vala had been trying to compensate for a lack of self-worth for a very long time, and he wasn't really sure how to deal with that. He figured the only thing he could do was open up and pray he wouldn't regret it.

"Listen, Vala. When I lost Sha're, I didn't think I could ever love a woman again. It took a long time for me to come to the place where I can look at someone else without feeling guilty. No one can replace Sha're, but no one has to. I had to figure that out for myself. You're a completely different woman than her, and that's a good thing. It helped me to realize that to love you wouldn't be betraying her.

"What I'm saying, Vala, is that I've come to the place where I can say, 'Yes. I'll marry you.'"

She was cautious. "You're not teasing me?"

"No. I'm being completely serious. I want to marry you."

She moved into his arms then. It was the answer she wanted, finally.

When they re-entered the bridge, Rodney and Sam were explaining some of the controls to Henry and Fargo. Zane was listening intently, and when they finished with a particular screen, he made a few suggestions that Rodney scoffed at. Sam, on the other hand, listened hard, and wrote down some notes on what he was saying.

On the other side of the bridge, Teyla and Ronan were explaining something about the Wraith to Jo and Jack. In the center of the room the three doctors were talking about some of the improvements made by GD that had recently been released to the world in general. The rest of the group were distributed listening in on the conversations, and injecting a point here and there.

O'Neill was listening to Zane's suggestions, which were really quite good, and Rodney was being his usual arrogant self by not thinking before he scoffed. O'Neill noticed that Sam had filled two pages with notes and asked about ten different questions. Zane had answered each question, and Sam had written down his answers, almost word for word.

Then, O'Neill noticed that Daniel and Vala had walked in, and uncharacteristically, he had his arm around her shoulders. O'Neill decided to go over and investigate. Daniel was smiling at something Vala saying, and for her part, Vala was beaming. O'Neill had an idea of what had just happened in the briefing room, and he figured it was high time Daniel realized he had a good thing going, and that he needed to act on it. Personally, Vala wasn't his type, but Daniel really loved her.

"Hi kids. Do I take it congratulations are in order?"

Jackson looked shocked at O'Neill's words. "How did you know?"

"Because you would _never_ put your arm around her unless you had come to some sort of mutual understanding about your relationship."

Jackson looked embarrassed, but didn't remove his arm from her. "I guess you're right. Yeah. She asked, and I said yes."

O'Neill nodded. He really wasn't surprised. Not that he would have seen the feelings between them if Sam hadn't pointed it out. Right before pointing out to him that she wasn't under his command anymore and that it was ridiculous to pretend there wasn't anything between them. O'Neill had seen her point, and had proposed to her the next day. Why waste time?

Now, it looked like Jackson and Vala had finally stopped their games. In a way it was too bad. It was fun to watch. Vala had a habit of saying things to Daniel in public that made him extremely uncomfortable. But, knowing Vala, she wouldn't stop that just because they were married. "Who knows," O'Neill thought. "She just might increase it."

He sincerely hoped so.

In the main conference room of Altair. Rodney McKay was looking at his orders. O'Neill had given them to him earlier that morning. In a way this was a dream job for him, but at the same time it was a nightmare. The IOA had recently come to an agreement with the leaders of the planet Eldred in Pegasus. In exchange for Earth building a city, and giving them instructions on how to expand the city, the people of the planet would vacate the Lantean City Ship, Borealis.

McKay wasn't sure what he thought of this. There were lots of things that would need done in the city ship. There were massive amounts of damage. While the superstructure itself was intact, there would be repairs to the towers and tunnels that would need to be made. There were systems that would need to be repaired if the ship were to fly again. And that's what the IOA wanted. Another functioning city ship. McKay would definitely have his work cut out for him. At least the IOA was allowing him to hand pick his own team.

Chuck Campbell would be asked to be his second in command. After working on the control systems of Atlantis for so long Rodney believed that he would be a good choice since he couldn't have Radek Zelenka. And, of course, his wife would be asked to go along as his chief medical officer.

He had several more ideas as to who would be accompanying him to the Pegasus galaxy, and he mentally checked off who would be essential, and who would be expendable if they couldn't or wouldn't agree to join the expedition. Perhaps some of the Global Dynamics people would be of use.

It suddenly occurred to him, that he should ask Zane Donovan if his construction mites might not be of use in this case. Then, he realized that he had pretty well alienated the young genius. It was something completely foreign to him, but McKay realized he would have to apologize to Dr. Donovan. Besides, he had seen Samantha Carter writing down things that Donovan was saying. Carter was one of the few people that he admitted was on his level, intellectually, and if she was so interested, perhaps he should go back over what Donovan had been saying.


	5. Chapter 5

_The Authors would like to stress that they do own neither Stargate in any of it's flavors, nor Eureka. If they did, this story would be Canon. :-D_

_Please review!_

**Chapter 5**

Douglas Fargo had gone away from the tour of GD, absolutely thrilled. O'Neill had said that they wanted him to help with the Altair built Astraeus Class ships. He was concerned, however, because much as they said they wanted Holly Marten on the team as well, they hadn't asked for her specifically. She might not want to give up her job at Colson Industries.

His fears were somewhat justified. Holly was very hesitant to leave Colson, as she was one of the senior researchers. Fargo almost changed his mind, but when Alec Colson saw the hesitation in him, he stepped in.

Holly and Fargo were sitting in Colson's office. It was strange to be sitting there without Colson, himself in the room, but his secretary had hurriedly shown them in when they arrived for the nine o'clock meeting. It was now a quarter past, and Colson still had not arrived. Holly was concerned. "What if he doesn't like my work? I haven't been here very long. Maybe he's going to fire me. Maybe…."

Fargo was spared from answering, by the door to the office opening, and Colson striding in. He sat down and said, "Good morning. Sorry for being late."

"That's ok, Mr. Colson. Whatever the problem is, I'm sure we can fix…" she stopped as he waved her off.

"You're not in trouble, Holly. In fact, your work has been exemplary. So much so, that I'm placing you and Doug on a special project."

"Special project?" Fargo asked. "But Sir, I gave my notice. As a matter of fact, you were there when General O'Neill asked me to help out at the Altair site. I won't be here after tomorrow, Sir."

"I realize that, Dr. Fargo," Colson said. "And I also know that they want Dr. Marten there as well. Far more than they let on, as a matter of fact. I spoke with General Carter, after she said they would love to have her. She told me that 'love to have her' was an understatement."

"Oh!" was all Holly could say.

"The fact of the matter is that the GD-305 ships will have the Colson Industries name on their engines. That means there needs to be some Colson Industries people there, when they're being built. Now, I've told General Carter that you two will remain on my payroll, but that you will be subject to the chain of command at Global Dynamics. My understanding is that the Earth Stargate will be placed in Section 5 of GD. Therefore, this will be officially a Section 5 project. It will be under Dr. Donovan's purview, but on Altair, General Carter is in charge. Dr. Donovan, himself will be following her orders while on Altair." He looked at Fargo closely for a few moments.

"Doug," he said. "I realize that this puts you considerably down the totem pole at the facility where you used to be in charge. Will you be okay with this?"

"Sir, I'm fine with it," he said quickly. "I'm going to be working on another planet. How many people can say that?"

"Good. Now, what do you say, Dr. Marten?" He asked Holly.

"I don't know what to say, Mr. Colson. Except, thank you! I wanted to go, but I kept thinking that my job was too important to lose. Now, I don't have to lose it!"

Colson smiled, and shook both of their hands. "You are now freed from your current projects, and are to report to Global Dynamics in a week's time. As an added bonus, you will both be receiving substantial pay increases."

It was one of the rare instances where Dr. Holly Marten was speechless.

It was Samantha Carter's first day, with the new Stargate arrangement. Since she was working incognito, through GD, she had chosen to come in to GD in civilian clothing, so was wearing a light blue skirt and blazer over a white blouse.

Before she went to Altair, she would be meeting with Henry who, along with Zane, was going to be accompanying her today. Outside, Henry's office, she stopped at the desk of Larry Haberman, Henry's administrative assistant. He had been Douglas Fargo's assistant while he was the CEO of GD, and it had been easiest to simply let him retain the job with Henry.

"Good morning. Can I help you?" Larry said when she arrived.

"I'm waiting to speak to Dr. Deacon," she told him.

"I'm sorry," Larry said, officiously. "Dr. Deacon has scheduled the day out of his office today. I'm afraid he won't be able to meet with you."

"Yes," Sam told him. "I'm going with him. I'm General Samantha Carter." She fingered her name badge at him, and his eyes almost popped out of his head.

Larry seemed torn between running, fainting, screaming, and saluting as he realized he had stepped in it. He finally settled on saying, "Yes, Ma'am" in a trembling, high pitched voice.

Again, he didn't seem to know what to do. _This guy is too much_, Sam thought. _I'm surprised Henry keeps him on._ To Larry, she said, "You want to let Dr. Deacon know I'm here?"

Suddenly, Larry was a flurry of movement, and he squeaked "Yes… Right… I will, Ma'am."

He disappeared for a moment, then appeared. "He's in his office, Ma'am." He visibly gulped, then "You can go right in."

"Thank you," Sam said much more graciously than she felt.

She entered Henry's office, and to her surprise, found her brother sitting there, talking with Henry.

"Wow!" Jack exclaimed when he saw her. "You look great, Sis."

"Thanks, Jack. No offense, but what are you doing here?" she asked him.

"I'm going with you today as well as Henry and Zane. Research for disclosure. Jack, Daniel, and I have been talking to the President about it. Since we're likely to be in a war with the Ori within a few years, it might be good to have the Stargate Program generally known. That would give us access to all of Earth's manpower. I'm researching our capabilities, so I need to talk to you two and Zane regarding the 305s."

She nodded at that and said, "I see." She held his gaze for a bit, and he heard in his mind, _And how do you feel about disclosure, personally, Jack?_

The thought came back. _No comment_.

Her eyebrows went up for a moment, then she took the seat that Henry had offered when she first came into the room.

Henry said to her, "Good morning. I guess under the circumstances, I should call you, Dr. Carter."

"That's liable to get confusing," Jack said, wryly.

"Well," Sam commented. "At least Zoe's not here right now."

"That's true," Henry laughed. "So, how does it feel to be a 'civilian' again, General?"

She laughed. "It's pretty interesting. Of course, I'm not really a civilian, but as far as most people here at GD are concerned, I'm no longer in uniform. Once Zane gets here, I'll go over this again, but I'll fill you in. While we're here, I'll be under you and Zane in the chain of command. Once we get to Altair, I will ultimately be the one responsible, but I plan on turning you and Zane loose, as long as you keep me in the loop. This is going to be one of the most mixed up operations I've ever worked in, because the ships will be under the label of Colson Aerospace. Therefore, once Holly Marten gets here, she will be the head of that division of Global. So while the Altair shipyards are mine, Holly will be in charge of that division at Colson. Right now, the military doesn't have any other labels going on any ships being built at Altair, so Holly and I will work somewhat jointly. If we were to branch out, I would be in overall charge of the shipyards, and Holly will have the GD slash Colson part of it. Eventually, my job, and hers, may very well become more administrative, but I'm hoping to get my hands just as dirty as you do, Henry."

Jack snickered at her statement, and Henry raised his eyebrows. Sam looked at her attire, and started laughing too. "I guess dressed like this, I'd better not get them too dirty, or I'll be single handedly financing the local cleaners."

At that moment, Zane was ushered in by Larry. The three got up and headed for the elevator. Sam explained the chain of command at the Altair site as they descended to level five.

Two days later, Holly and Fargo arrived at Eureka. They had a choice of taking Fargo's old house, which was adjoining Seth Osbourne's property, or taking rooms in Atlantis. Given that Osbourne still liked playing music at high volume in the middle of the night, they chose to live in Atlantis. However, because of the privatization of Eureka, Fargo still retained ownership of his house.

Their quarters were nice, in the section reserved for city administrators and higher officials. Those in the Stargate team who went offworld regularly, resided there as well. This was not simply because of the convenience and poshness of an 'Atlantis Tower Address', but because it reduced the talk that might be caused by a sudden influx of military faces in Eureka.

They finished unpacking in the afternoon and decided to take a walk. They were meandering through the city, which was slowly blossoming with ideas for businesses. There was a general wistfulness about the place. People were talking about the possibilities of Disclosure, and what it might mean for Atlantis. On the west pier, they found a familiar face. Vincent was having lunch with Mr. Woolsey, the mayor.

"Vincent! What are you doing here?" Fargo asked.

"Mr. Woolsey and I have been discussing using Virtual Vincent to bring a touch of class to the Mess Hall. Oh, I hate that term," Vince said, shuddering.

Woolsey nodded, "Yes. We're hoping that Disclosure occurs, and if it does, we'll be able to have a high class dining area here. However, if it doesn't, Virtual Vincent can still bring a touch of class to the mess area."

Fargo and Holly stepped into Henry's office at Global Dynamics. He ushered them into plush chairs, across from him, and they sat. Henry looked appraisingly at both of them. After a long moment, he said, "I've been in touch with Alec Colson. It seems that Holly will continue working for the Colson part of Global. For you, Doug, we have another idea, if you find it agreeable."

"What's that," Fargo asked, somewhat taken aback. As far as he knew, he was going to continue working for Colson, and now finding that subject to change, had him a bit skittish.

"It seems that the owners have talked, and they find this solution a bit equitable." He pause a moment, to phrase this the right way, then went on. "If we were to go with the chain of command intact, here at GD, you would simply be a worker on the Altair project, Doug."

"That's fine," Fargo said. "I don't mind that at all."

"I know you don't," Henry agreed. "And that maturity is one of the reasons the owners are willing to do this. You, Doug, are to be made the deputy director of Global Dynamics." He paused to let his words sink in. "If you are willing, that is."

Suddenly, Fargo's reserve disappeared, and his demeaner went through shock, then settled around pleased surprise. "Really?" he burst out. "Deputy director? That's cool!"

Holly gave him a huge hug. "Dougie! I'm so proud of you!"

Henry was smiling. "I take it that's a yes then?"

Fargo almost gasped, "Of course!"

Henry laughed, then went on. "Global Dynamics did very well under your leadership, Doug. No one's going to deny that." He stood up and held out his hand to Fargo, then to Holly. "Welcome back, both of you."

Fargo was aboard the _Nathan Stark_ working on the engines. They had launched the ship three days ago, and had done a power up of her engines. That was a disaster. The control systems for the gravity drive worked fine and the drive itself worked, but not effectively enough. An engine that took forty-five minutes to achieve a speed of ten kilometers per hour, just wasn't what they were looking for. Fargo had disassembled the engines and gone through them with a fine toothed comb. Now, the shakedown cruise was supposed to be happening in four days, but if the engine didn't work, well then, what was the point?

Colonel John Sheppard walked into the engine room as Fargo was letting off a string of swear words. He appeared to be only a pair of legs sticking out from under a control console. Sheppard stopped and listened. The words sounded remarkably like something Hermiod would say, interspersed with 'Frak' and 'Felgercarb'.

Sheppard chuckled, and knealt down so he could see inside the console, where, presumably, the upper half of Fargo's body was. He waited for the string of profanity to stop, then addressed the scientist. "Dr. Fargo?"

There was a muffled thud, a description of a 'golmonging' wrench, then "What!?"

"Dr. Fargo, it's Colonel Sheppard."

"I'm kinda busy right now. Can you come back later?"

"So I gathered. I was just wanting a status update." He gritted his teeth, waiting for more of the pseudo profanity, but it didn't come. Instead, the legs started trying to get purchase on the floor, and the rest of Fargo became visible.

"It doesn't work yet. There's your status update," Fargo told him through gritted teeth. He then started working his body back into the console.

"Any idea how long?" Sheppard backed up a bit to get out of the reach of the mad scientist he fully expected to erupt from the hole.

Instead of erupting out, all movement in the legs, which were all that was visible again, ceased. Then a muffled, "Are you serious?" came weakly from somewhere under the console.

Sheppard started to stand up. "Maybe I should come back later," he said.

"Hang on a moment," Fargo said as the legs started pulling the rest of the body from the hole again.

This time, he stood up and faced the Colonel. "Sir, I know you're looking forward to taking command of this ship for the shakedown cruise. But you've got to understand. I don't know what is wrong with the drive. It should work, and a lot better than what we've seen. I suspect that there's a flaw in the software, but before I can say that definitely, I want to make absolutely sure that there isn't a physical problem. If these engines don't work flawlessly, two things can happen. One, we don't accelerate as fast as we should. Two…. Well. Have you ever heard what happens inside a singularity?"

Sheppard didn't say anything as the doctor got back under the console. He didn't have to. The description was very… descriptive.

Despite Fargo's dire predictions, the drive was ready for testing on schedule. Sheppard was waiting in his command chair, ready to give the order. Finally, Fargo's voice came over the comm. "We're ready down here." Right before the comm went dead, Sheppard heard a very quiet, "I hope," from Fargo.

"Gravity drives on, one eighth power. Bearing, ahead."

Suddenly, there was the sensation of falling, and the ship accelerated forward. "Sorry about that, Bridge," came Fargo's voice. "Just need to tweak the counter force settings. Next time we change bearings, it shouldn't feel like we jumped off a building."

"Good," Sheppard said. It had been all he could do to keep his breakfast down on that initial acceleration. What was worse, the sensation had been that he was strapped in, facing straight down. It was like some demented amusement park ride. "Are you ready for maneuvering down there?" he asked. If Fargo couldn't counter the sensation of gravity, this shakedown cruise was about to put every roller coaster he'd ever ridden on as a child to shame. Every combat maneuver he'd ever made would seem like childs play.

Fargo made a final entry into a data file. Then, he typed, 'sudo service counterfd restart'. Hesitantly, he pressed the enter key, and the sensation of falling disappeared. He gave a huge sigh of relief. "We should be good to go, Colonel," he said through the comm.

Sheppard tightened his straps in the command chair, then ordered. "Right turn, five degrees." The stars on the screen shifted, but he felt nothing. "Left turn, fifteen degrees." Again, the screen shifted, but no sensation. "All Stop. Reverse Course, one quarter speed." The screen showed a dizzying blur of stars as the ship swung around and accelerated, but for all the sensation Sheppard felt, he could have been sitting in Altair's rec room, watching 'Star Wars' with Teal'c.

Next, Sheppard ordered the ship on an eliptical course that would take them, eventually to Earth. The hyperdrives were kicked in, and the ship shot forward.

Once the _Nathan Stark_ arrived at Earth, Sheppard was called to Zane Donovan's office in Section Five of GD. When he arrived, he found Samantha Carter and Holly Marten waiting for him there.

"How did the cruise go?" Sam asked.

"It was great," Sheppard exclaimed. "Fargo worked out the problems with the gravity drive, and then the ship worked without a hitch. It flies as smooth as glass. Not even any sensation of movement. We blew several of the Area 51 ships' speed records away."

"That sounds great," Sam said. "So how do you forsee the GD-305 ships working out in our arsenal?"

Sheppard thought for a couple of moments. "General. There's really no way of knowing until we get one into combat, but from what I've seen, I think it will be a great asset."

"Well, Colonel. You've just become our senior commander for the GD-305s, so I have another question for you. How would you like to test fly each of the ships? The _Nathan Stark_ is yours, but you are now the expert on how these ships fly."

"So not the shakedown cruise on each, but the test flight? And after each test flight, I'm back in my own ship?" Sheppard wanted to make sure he understood what he was being asked.

"That's right," Sam said.

"On one condition," Sheppard said.

Sam was a bit taken aback by this. "And what would that be?" she asked.

"I want Fargo in the engine room each time." Sheppard looked at Holly, then back at Sam. "He's a top notch engineer, with some great instincts."

General Carter slowly nodded her head. "Alright, Colonel. We can do that." She looked at Holly, who was beaming. No one had to tell her how good an engineer her man was. She knew, but it was nice to hear it from other people.

A couple of weeks after the first of the GD-305s rolled off the line, Jackson and Vala's wedding date arrived. Jack O'Neill stood in for his friend, and Sam for Vala. In an interesting twist, O'Neill and Sam also tied the knot on the same day. O'Neill had acquired the marriage license, and simply not told anyone, including Sam that he had bought it. He had had a ring made for her, and that morning, he told Jackson what he intended to do. Once Jackson and Vala got back to the entrance of the church after their ceremony, he would ask Sam to walk up to the minister with him. Eureka's minister, Reverend Harper, was asked to please wait, as there could very well be another ceremony.

She did, and there was.

Vala was absolutely thrilled that she got to stand up for Sam as well.

The only one even slightly upset was Jack Carter, as he had not been present. It was a small ceremony, just including witnesses for both couples. However, if there was someone for his sister, he had to admit that Jack O'Neill was that someone. After the initial shock, he welcomed his new brother-in-law with open arms.

Henry, Zane, Fargo, and McKay had succeeded in building a working hyperdrive, based on the Asgard model, but completely Earth tech. As they were not restricted in their thinking by several millennia of stagnation of imagination, they were able to think outside the box where the Asgard weren't. The second GD-305, the _Kim Anderson_ was fitted with the prototype GD hyperdrive, and to Samantha O'Neill's surprise, Henry and Grace had been working on a powercore that used the same superheavy fuel as the _Nathan Stark_ but with an entirely Earth tech base. It surpassed the Lantean core's power output by twelve and a half percent.

Zane predicted that the Earth Tech hyperdrive would have a greater speed than the Asgard drive as well. Hermiod, the Asgard who had worked on Daedalus, was working on the Altair computers, and saw Zane's predictions. He assured Zane that the hyperdrive would not achieve the fifteen percent increase in speed that was predicted. However, he said very little when it actually achieved seventeen percent on the shakedown cruise of the _Kim Anderson. _That seventeen percent allowed the remaining speed records set by the Area 51 ships to be blown out of the water.

Three more GD-305s were finished, each one with a name honoring a Eureka scientist who had paid the ultimate price for science. The _Carl Carlson_, the _Pierre Fargo_, and the _Jimmy Perkins_ were all commissioned and performed admirably, each adding to the legend that was quickly forming around the Global Dynamics built ships. Both Douglas Fargo and Eva Thorne were shocked but thrilled to see their loved ones honored with having a ship named after them. There were some at Global Dynamics who argued that the Astraeus class of ship was a warship and therefore should not be named after scientists, but Henry Deacon pointed out that the whole point of Eureka and Global Dynamics was the betterment of mankind. Something dedicated to saving mankind from extinction definitely fit into that category. Those who had argued were silenced by such logic.

In August of that year, the American Vice President had a fatal heart attack, and shortly afterward, the President, a friend of O'Neill, Jackson, and Jack Carter was in a meeting with the three, regarding disclosure. At the end of the meeting, the President asked Daniel to speak to him privately after the other two men left.

The door closed, and Daniel asked, "So what's up, Mark?" Mark Gilmor had been a friend for several years, even though his initial introduction to SG1 had been a less than stellar meeting. He had been a CIA operative who had been ordered to spy on O'Neill to see if he was cut out to be the head of Stargate Command.

Gilmor sat down at his desk, and looked appraisingly at Jackson. "Daniel," he finally said. "I've got a request for you."

Jackson nodded. It occurred to him that the president was being somewhat cagey. "You know, the last request that was made of me ended up getting me married."

"Not to worry, Daniel. I'm not proposing marriage to you. But I am proposing that you come on board as my Vice President."

"What?" Daniel said simply.

"I've got two more years of this term, and I'm able to run again. I really can't think of anyone better qualified in the situation in which we find ourselves. I need someone to complete at least this term with me, and I'd rather it be you."

Daniel was shaking his head. "I'd only be a good choice if you were planning on disclosure. You haven't made that decision yet. In fact, from what you've said today, you seem to be leaning the other way. So I'm asking, why me?"

Gilmor nodded. "Yes, you'd be a very good choice if I were to decide on disclosure, however, you are an equally good choice if I decide against it. If I decide against it, the country still has the same problems with the Ori looming on the horizon. The difference is that we are not facing those problems publically. Therefore, you are still a good choice."

Jackson again shook his head. "No, Mark, I'm not. If you appoint me vice president, you will have to contend with the same people who thought I was a crackpot for my theories regarding ancient Egypt."

"Yes, we will, but think about it, Daniel. We _will_ have to make disclosure at some point. I'd rather you be on my team when that time comes. You know what is going on with the Stargate much more than I do. It's better for the country to have you as VP rather than some joker who doesn't have a clue."

"And if we don't make disclosure before this term is up? Then your chances of being re-elected with me on the ticket with you are slim to none."

"That, my friend, depends on how well I do in the remaining two years, doesn't it?

Jackson slowly nodded. Then, he told the President. "Give me till the end of the week to make a decision, okay?"

Gilmor agreed, and Jackson stood and left the Oval Office. Outside, he found his two other friends waiting for him.

"What's up?" O'Neill asked.

"I'll tell you on the way back to Atlantis," Jackson said.

"I just don't think I want to be such a public person. Everyone will be watching our every move," Jackson said to Vala, that night. They had been living in Atlantis for several months, and were standing on a balcony overlooking Eureka. The city was not usually visible from the lake, but Atlantis stood far enough out of the water that the town could be seen from it's higher towers. Especially at night, as it soon would be.

"You really think so? How much have you observed the vice president in the past few years, Daniel?"

"Well, I…. Uh…. Ok. I get your point."

Vala looked her husband in the eye and said. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you, Daniel. You know the president is leaning towards disclosure. By being so close to him, you could probably convince him."

"It's not just the president, Vala. It's also Sheriff Carter. You know anything regarding public disclosure has to go through him as well. He's carefully remained neutral in all of our talks, arguing both sides. I'm really not sure what he thinks about disclosure."

"How does Jack O'Neill feel?"

"He thinks we can't keep the secret much longer."

"Then I think Sheriff Carter will feel the same way."

Jackson eyed Vala, trying to figure this revelation out. "How do you figure?"

"General O'Neill and Sam are married." He nodded, wondering where this was going. "They usually feel the same way on this type of thing, right?" Again, he nodded. "Right now, it's a pretty hot topic among the people of GD and SGC."

"And you think that since they're twins, they'll feel the same way?"

"No, dear. I think that since they are able to communicate telepathically, they'll have 'discussed' such a hot topic."

Jackson's head suddenly snapped from facing the lights of Eureka to looking at his wife. "You know, you probably have something there." He thought for a moment. "But I wouldn't feel right about using my knowledge of their communication like that. When the Sheriff is ready to talk about it, he will."

Vala shook her head. "Daniel, does it really matter what you know about their telepathic communication? You know the secret can't be kept, just like General O'Neill knows it. So the president must be convinced before disclosure is made accidently. Disclosure would be an embarrassment then. That needs to be avoided. You can help convince him."

Daniel nodded. He agreed with her, but he wasn't sure he was going to like being so well known. However once disclosure came, he knew that he would be vindicated to his former colleagues. That would be gratifying.

They watched as the sun set, and the town moved into shadows, then darkness. It was quite pretty all lit up. When the night started to get cold, they went in.

The next morning, Jackson walked to the gateroom, stopped in to see Mr. Woolsey to tell him of his decision, then O'Neill personally flew Daniel to Washington DC in a jumper.

One week later, on the senate floor, Daniel Jackson was sworn in as Vice President of the United States. Those who had served with him in the Air Force, and at Global Dynamics were watching from the public seats in the balcony. After he was sworn in, he travelled back to Eureka to move himself and Vala to Washington DC.

It took little time to pack as he and Vala had decided to maintain their residence in Atlantis as well as one in Washington DC. They packed clothes, but aside from a few personal effects, there was little they needed to take with them.

Daniel and Vala climbed into the jumper and O'Neill took off. As they flew, everything was calm over the Earth. The Atlantis deep space sensors were at full power scanning the lower levels of hyperspace where Goa'uld hyperdrives worked. This had the side effect of limiting the effectiveness of the hyperspace sensors in the higher frequencies where Asgard and Alterran hyperdrives functioned, but it was considered to be a reasonable trade-off. This was a mistake that would be responsible for one of the greatest disasters in Earth history.


	6. Chapter 6

_The authors wish to point out that they do not own either Eureka or Stargate. _

_Please review!_

**Chapter 6**

In orbit 300 Aschen ships dropped out of Hyperspace. No one cared when it happened but the Aschen managed to modify their hyperdrives to work in a much higher level of hyperspace and to disrupt their hyperspace signature preventing their ships from being detected.

Once they arrived the automated systems on their ships caused the BC-304 and GD-305 shields to activate. The interceptor systems immediately fired on the Aschen weapon blasts stopping them from impacting the Earth ships.

On Earth deep in Atlantis Carson Beckett sat in the control chair. Since the Tok'ra had alerted Earth about a possible attack, someone with the ATA gene had been in the chair room 24 hours a day. When the attack came, Carson was able to fire back in just a few seconds. Very quickly drones were firing from Atlantis and Antarctica. In the control room the GD planetary defense system was activated. In the middle of Main Street in Eureka the Irradiated Uranium Particle Cannon, or IUPC, rose out of the ground and fired into space. The beam was aimed at a specially built satellite that used a series of mirrors that reflected the beam at the Aschen ships. Since its rediscovery the Beam was heavily modified and upgraded making the beam far more powerful.

In space, the Aschen ships were maneuvering and fired at the small Earth fleet. Already the unarmed communication satellites in orbit of Earth had been shot down. Panic spread across Earth as worldwide communication collapsed. The Aschen ships far outnumbered the Earth fleet, and were able to fire through the defensive lines, hitting the planet. Already Tokyo, Shanghai, New York, London, and Beijing were in flames.

However, they paid a heavy price to destroy these cities. The drones were ripping massive holes through the Aschen ships. 60 ships were already destroyed. Meanwhile the secondary IUPCs were firing their beams to the moon where they were reflected back to the Aschen ships. On the other side of the Earth, an IUPC facility just outside of Moscow was firing at a satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the city where the beams were reflected towards Aschen ships attacking Europe and Asia.

On the bridge of the _Nathan Stark_, Colonel John Sheppard was preparing his ship to launch when the attack came. A new, more versatile version of the gravity drive designed by S.A.R.A.H. had been installed aboard the ship, and Sheppard was about to take her out to test it. Quickly, Sheppard ordered the launch of the 305.

"I haven't calibrated the gravity drive yet!" Fargo yelled into the comm.

"Just push the button, Doug! That hardly matters right now!" Sheppard shouted back.

"Yes, it does, John! If we launch without things being set right, we could be sludge on the decks by the time we hit orbit."

Sheppard used some of the creative cursing he had learned from Fargo, and then said, more calmly, "Do your best, Doug."

A moment later, he heard from the engine deck, "The best is done! Launch us, Colonel!"

"Wonderful! Launch!" The ship attained orbit in less than a second, and Sheppard gazed at the holo screen showing him what was happening.

Just a few miles away, an Aschen warship was being pelted by drones launched from Atlantis. They were circling the warship and taking turns ramming their bodies through the warship in a pattern that Sheppard recognized. _I see Carson is in the 'chair'_ Sheppard thought to himself as he ordered the _Stark_ to close on an Aschen warship moving smoothly into orbit above Eureka. "Launch the fighter drones," he ordered as they closed in. "Fire at will," he told the gunner in charge of the APBs. He turned to the gunner in charge of the GD molecular bond disrupters. "Lock on the MBDs. Prepare to fire on my order."

The gunner acknowledged, and then said, "No need. The drones have destroyed the ship, sir."

"Come on!" Sheppard yelled at no one in particular. "At least let us _try out_ the shipboard weapons!"

It had been decided by many of Earth's tactical strategists that the best approach was to take out shielded ships with low power on the APBs to remove the shields, and then use the MBDs to destroy the hull of the newly unshielded ships.

The next Aschen fighter they engaged was removed from active duty in a short time by the MBDs in the first active test of the weapons. Unfortunately, the Aschen craft got in a few shots that damaged one of the APB turrets. The weapon still fired, but only in a direction 32.7 degrees to the right of the ship's axis and slightly downward. Of course should any Aschen vehicles stray to that spot, they were destined to be toast.

Since the _Jimmy Perkins_ had just been finished, she was not crewed yet. She had been brought to Earth on her test flight by Sheppard, as had all of the 305s, but Earth Defense had yet to decide on a crew for her. As a result, a quick call was made to General Samantha O'Neill, and she grabbed Captain Walter Harriman, her chief engineer for the Altair shipyards and they came through the gate. She officially took command of the ship, and a skeleton crew was mustered from Global Dynamics Section Five personnel. Walter was made chief engineer for the duration of the battle. As well, Jo Lupo and Deputy Andy were brought aboard to man the weapons consoles, as both had given input as to the layout for ease of use in combat situations.

The ship launched as quickly as possible. Sam saw that Sheppard was protecting Eureka, so she took the _Perkins_ to an orbit above Moscow to protect the Earth based IUPC there. It turned out that it was a good thing the _Perkins_ arrived when it did, as an Aschen craft, riddled with holes from the particle cannon and drones was starting a Kamikaze dive towards the surface. "Andy!" Sam called as soon as she saw what was happening.

The android turned towards her, a huge smile on his face. "Yes, Ma'am?" he said.

"Take that ship out!"

"Okey Dokey," Andy said as he turned back to the MBD controls he was manning, still grinning wildly. "Target is…. Destroyed," he said a moment later as the doomed craft turned to gravel, then to dust as it continued on its course to light up the night sky of Moscow with millions of microscopic meteors. Andy's mouth made an "oh" shape and his eyes widened as he saw the effects of the MBDs. Then, resolutely grinning, he turned the weapons on other ships that needed removing. Sam glanced at him in acknowledgement and caught his reaction. _A kid in a candy store,_ she thought, grinning herself.

Back aboard the _Nathan Stark_, a drone riddled craft was moving into a lower orbit as it lost power. Its pilot was having trouble controlling the craft, but it seemed that collateral damage was something the Aschen wished to maximize. The final course the ship took before its control was lost put it on an arc that would remove Juneau, Alaska from the map.

"Get me close to that ship," Fargo told Sheppard. "I have an idea!"

Sheppard ordered the _Stark_ to come within ten meters, directly above the disintegrating warship. Fargo manipulated the new gravity drive and increased gravity below the ship. This caused the Aschen craft to fall upwards, towards them. At the same time, he increased gravity above the _Stark_ and in effect, they both fell out of the Earth's gravitational field. Once he had them into a high enough, stable orbit, he let go of the Aschen ship and the _Stark's _MBDs reduced it to dust.

Elsewhere, the Terran Fighter Drones, or "Seekers" were in a heated dogfight against the Aschen Fighter drones: "Arrows". Already thousands of Aschen Fighter drones were in space trying to gain superiority. In a one on one fight the Terran fighters were superior. However the Aschen had a vastly greater number on their side. The fighting between the Seekers and Arrows continued until half of the Arrows changed course and flew toward Earth at their top speed. Many were heading towards tall mountains but some were heading towards freshwater rivers and reservoirs both natural and artificial.

In Atlantis, Carson Becket was alerted to the drones attempting to make runs on Earth's surface. He was about to ignore them and allow the Air Forces and Navies of the world to deal with them when Atlantis alerted him to biological agents aboard the drones. Remembering his briefing Carson almost panicked until his training took over.

"Everyone listen." Carson said over the com lines to the Earth fleet, his brogue extremely pronounced in his excitement. "The sensors are telling me that the Arrows are carrying biological weapons."

Silence. Finally, there was the strained voice of O'Neill as he acknowledged. "Alright Carson, we're redirecting the F-302s and the atmospheric fighters to combat them."

"Can we use the Seekers to attack?" Samantha O'Neill asked.

"Do the Arrows in orbit have bioweapons?" O'Neill asked in response to her question.

"Yes they do. Every one of them is armed with bio weapons," Carson responded.

"Then no, the seekers need to hold the rest of the arrows off. You need to pick off the ones that are making runs on Earth. General Chekov and Colonel Davidson; help Carson destroy the arrows."

The arrows were accelerating towards Earth this whole time. Already they were moving at fifteen times the speed of sound.

"Oh no! Their approach is completely ballistic. They are not intending to hit the ground. The arrows are moving so fast that they will shatter the moment they hit the atmosphere. The bio toxins will be spread across the world in days." Radek Zelenka said from the Atlantis sensor console.

Everyone was looking at the sensor readouts in horror as the Aschen arrows slammed into the mesosphere. Most of the arrows survived and continued down and were destroyed once they hit the stratosphere. Most of these were aimed into the Jetstream and the fastest moving of the prevailing winds. From there the bio-toxins were spread across the whole world. Some of the arrows launched capsules of toxins into the rivers and reservoirs poisoning the water supply. Even more of the capsules detonated over vast fields of corn in the American heartland, and wheat in China and India.

In Los Angeles, California, it seemed as though time had stopped as people stared out to sea. On the horizon was an Aschen warship, rapidly getting larger. It was coming in low, and fire was gushing out of every one of its ports. It looked like nothing so much as an avenging angel, coming to take revenge on the city for some past wrong. Behind the ship was another, much smaller vessel, fire spewing from its nose. Wherever the fire touched the large ship, it burst into flame, but it wasn't going to be consumed soon enough. On board the Queen Mary the tour going on had stopped. Fred Torgerson, a steelworker from Chicago, was standing by the rail, watching as the ship grew larger and larger. He had been in the army in Desert Storm, and his training suddenly came to life. He grabbed his wife's hand, and pulled her towards the eastern side of the superstructure. "Come on, People!" he shouted to those who stood, unmoving by the railings. "Get behind the walls!"

People started running and shouting, but it was far too late. The ship touched the buildings in central Los Angeles. It nosed over, and started to cartwheel across the city, breaking apart as it did. The smaller ship behind it was consumed by the fireball created in the first spin of the larger craft. Then, something in the large craft must have given way, because it exploded as it landed on its back. Then, a much larger blast took its toll.

The shockwave from it ran down the valley, taking out everything between Los Angeles and Ontario. Burbank and North Hollywood were protected by the Hollywood Hills, but everything south of the city was flattened. Master Sergeant Fred Torgerson, Retired, had time to think, '_I never should have left Chicago_' before those who had been watching on the Queen Mary, were smashed to a pulp by the force of the blast. The blast finally ran out of force at San Clemente, to the south. While North Hollywood and Burbank were spared the blast, they were badly damaged due to the number of planes that were knocked out of the sky by the shockwave.

Those in San Bernardino, who saw the blast and the devastation dissipating as it came towards them, thought they were in the clear. They were not. The radiation levels from a Naquadria reactor were great, and while the giant Aschen ship hadn't been powered by one, the smaller, Earth ship, was. It was from there that the larger, more devastating explosion came, and it had the greater fallout as well. The fallout spread all the way to Bakersfield, Barstow, Palm Springs, and San Diego. Southern California was rendered uninhabitable, and would remain that way for many years to come.

The GD-305s were proving their worth. They were tearing their way through the Aschen ships with little difficulty. Due to the size difference, the greater maneuverability, and speed of the 305s, they were easily cutting the Aschen lines apart.

The hundreds of Seekers launched by the 305s were weaving their way through the Aschen shields and firing at the Aschen weapons emplacements with ease. Already many of the ships were having trouble maintaining their rate of fire. Several Seekers were carrying two pods beneath their wings. Inside these pods were twenty mini drones each. Once in the middle of the Aschen lines the Pods were released and the mini drones fired. They quickly targeted several Aschen ships and flew right through their hulls, leaving small holes in their wake, which quickly grew from air pressure blasting through them. From there they began fulfilling their purpose as Anti-Personnel weapons. In minutes the targeted ships were devoid of crews and drifting in space.

The Earth fleet was rescued from being overwhelmed when a fleet of Free Jaffa Ha'tak dropped out of hyperspace. The Jaffa fleet quickly took up position where any stray shots would not hit earth and opened fire. Hundreds of Orange plasma blasts bombarded the remaining Aschen ships eliminating them. After 4 hours of combat the majority of the Aschen fleet was destroyed. Those that weren't, escaped into hyperspace.

However, the Aschen fleet wasn't done wreaking havoc on Earth. Several ships were in low orbits where they were subject to gravitational pull before they could be towed to a safer orbit. Many of them fell, destroying whatever was in their way. Cities, farms, homes, schools… it did not matter.

When the battle had begun, President Mark Gilmor had been standing behind a podium giving a speech. It wasn't just any speech…. It was _The Speech_. This speech would insure that his name was remembered. His concern, however, was whether it would be remembered in fame or infamy.

He had dreaded giving this speech, but O'Neill, Jack Carter, and his new VP had convinced him that it needed to be done. Disclosure. This would either unite the people of Earth, or drive them apart.

It was going well. People in the White House press room certainly seemed to be listening, and he was explaining about the Goa'uld Ra, when an aide brought him a note. One was also given to each of the three men standing with Gilmor on this disclosure. Each man read his copy, and the three behind the president looked at each other. It was news of the invasion.

O'Neill left the platform. He had to get to his jumper.

Carter was sick. The news made him physically ill. Here, they had convinced the president to go out on a limb and make full disclosure. The other nations of the world were broadcasting this speech as well. He looked at the president. He was standing, head bowed, shaking. Carter wondered if the commander in chief was crying. It almost looked like it.

Daniel Jackson was unsure of what to do. There were murmurings from the press. It was obvious that something was going on, but no one was filling them in on just what it was. Jackson took a tentative step forward. He was going to confer with his boss and see what he wanted to do, but then, the president slumped to the floor. In an instant, the secret service was herding the press out of the room. The president's doctor was brought in, and Daniel found himself in command. He and Carter slipped out of the press room and started making their way to the situation room. Instead, they were intercepted by the secret service who hurried them to the helipad. There, they found O'Neill waiting for them in the jumper. Six secret service agents climbed in the open back end of the jumper. Then, O'Neill closed it and they were airborne.

One of the agents, whom both O'Neill and Daniel obviously knew, introduced himself to Carter as Aiden Ford. He told them that the president was being examined by a doctor, but that it was up to Daniel to lead right now.

O'Neill cloaked the little ship, and then pushed it to its limits. He headed towards stargate command, then on reflection, turned the ship towards Atlantis. The city ship would be cloaked and shielded, due to an Asgard shield generator MaKay installed on a day off. This would provide the acting president with more safety than NORAD could.

He contacted Chekov, his second in command, and informed him of his intentions. "_That is a good idea, General. I will stay here and be your eyes and ears until you arrive at Atlantis. It will be better if you stay there rather than try to come back here. Atlantis has much more sophisticated monitoring equipment than NORAD anyway_."

O'Neill agreed with Chekov. There was a time when he would have thought the Russian was trying to push him out of the loop, by suggesting that he stay away from command, but that time was no longer. Chekov was too much of a professional in any case.

They made arrangements for the battle intel to be delivered to the jumper and then to Atlantis, as well as a continuous two way connection for O'Neill.

The jumper was quickly stowed in its bay and O'Neill fairly flew to the control room. He had Sam recalled from Altair, although as he ordered her to take command of the _Jimmy Perkins_, his heart was in his throat. It stayed there, and added the occasional jump when the _Perkins_ found itself in tight jams, throughout the battle. Intellectually, he knew that Sam was a consummately skilled commander, and that the ship she was commanding was the most advanced in Earth's fleet, but he was in love with her, and that was that. His heart was going to do what it would, and he'd just have to deal with it.

Reports were coming in left and right. Carter and Jackson were staying out of O'Neill's way, but they knew that their places were by his side through this horror. Then the reports of the Bio toxins came through. Jackson had Dr. McKay called to the control room. She quickly assessed the situation and asked Jackson to call in Allison, Janet Fraser and Zoe Carter to help her take stock and suggest solutions.

When the _Phoenix_ was destroyed, taking out Los Angeles, Jackson bowed his head for a moment, but that was it. Throughout his time with SG1, he had been, in effect, Special Forces trained. He knew the cost of war, but O'Neill also knew that his friend would spend many nights awake, seeing the images transmitted to Atlantis showing the explosions, over and over. It would be worse for him as he was technically in command when it happened.

Then, all was quiet. The Jaffa controlled Ha'tak had put in its appearance and the combined force had routed the Aschen ships. O'Neill called the Ha'tak and was pleased to see Bra'tac's face smiling at him.

"Bra'tac! Good to see you, but we've got another problem that we need to ask your help with. Several of those Aschen warships are too low to stay in orbit. They're gonna come down, and they won't be very particular about where they hit. "

"_I will do what I can; O'Neill, but we are only one ship_."

Carter was thinking furiously... "General," he said. "What about Fargo's trick? I know the _Nathan Stark_ has better gravity drives than the others, but couldn't the other 305s do the same thing? Maybe not as efficiently, but they should be able to move those hulks into a higher orbit."

"Sheppard!" O'Neill's voice reverberated through the control room.

"_I'm on it, General_."

"Good. What about it, Sam? Can you do it with the other 305s?"

"_We've got to try. Good thinking, Monkey_." She grinned as she used Lexi's pet name for their brother.

Carter was smiling as he looked at the image of his sister on the screen. "Yeah….. Don't call me Monkey."

Jackson was looking quizzically at Carter. "Monkey, Jack?"

"It's a pet name our sister Lexi used to call me. Well, she still does actually…" Suddenly Jack was staring at his wife. "Ally! Lexi.. What about Duncan? Could you use his help on this bio-toxin thing?"

Zoe caught the excitement too. "Yeah! Uncle Duncan is great with bio-toxins. I'll bet he'd have some ideas."

Allison was considering. "He's in South Africa right now." She turned to O'Neill. "General, did any of that stuff get into Lake Victoria?"

"What about it, General Chekov?"

"_We're checking the prevailing winds right now, General. And, yes. It looks like some of the winds will have taken the toxins to Lake Victoria._"

Allison looked from the Russian on the screen to O'Neill. "General. We could sure use Duncan."

He looked at Jackson. "It's your call, Daniel. How many people do you want working on this?"

Jackson was surprised. "Why's it my call, Jack?"

"Because Duncan doesn't have security clearance, and you now outrank me, buddy. Do we want to bring him into the loop?"

"Oh. By all means, give him clearance and get him out to Lake Victoria." He turned to the communications console. "Any word about President Gilmor?"

The young man sitting there hesitated. "Yes, sir. I have some information. Do you want me to say it…." He hedged and Jackson put a hand on his shoulder.

"Almost every person in this room knows the President. They're concerned too," he told the young man in a calming voice.

The man nodded. "Sir, apparently the president's doctor says he's had a stroke. I don't have all the particulars, but I can patch you in to the Whitehouse."

Jackson swallowed hard but told him to do just that.


	7. Chapter 7

_Standard Disclaimer: Neither Stargate nor Eureka are owned by the authors. If they were, there would be "in canon" crossovers between the two. Please Review._

_**Chapter 7**_

Two days later, Daniel Jackson, Jack O'Neill, Jack Carter, and Henry Deacon sat in the conference room at Global Dynamics. Two secret service agents stood by the door, one of which was Aiden Ford. He was now in charge of the contingent protecting Daniel Jackson.

Daniel had the floor for this meeting. "Ok. So what I'm going to tell you goes no further than this room. Much of it is going to become common knowledge soon, but until then, we want to limit damage control.

"It seems that Mark Gilmor has had a stroke. I've talked to his doctor and his wife. Neither one would let me talk to Mark at this point. However, they both tell me that Mark was really concerned about disclosure. He knew it was necessary, but he was really dreading it because he knew it could either make or break him." What was left unsaid, but thought by all the people in the room was how the family of Gilmor would fare with disclosure. The President was known to be a family man, and his kids would bear whatever reaction their father received. That would be a terrible burden for a man like Gilmor.

"His doctor is afraid that any more stress could kill him. He does know about the battle, but he does _not_ know about Southern California, nor does he know about the other cities that were destroyed. Most especially, he does not know about the bio-toxin.

"Because of all of these things, President Mark Gilmor is going to be taking some time off."

Daniel stood up and started pacing. He was an accomplished public speaker, but O'Neill could tell he was disturbed by what he was saying. He really didn't want the limelight, but he most certainly had it now. "As Vice President, I have the hotseat in this one. Basically, I've been told that I am in charge until further notice." He sat down and sighed heavily. "I've consulted the joint chiefs, and they recommend retaliation. As much as I hate to say it, I agree. But, this is home _world_ security, not just home _land_. So it's in your purview, Jack." He looked at O'Neill. "What do you recommend?"

O'Neill glanced at the other two men in the room. He knew that Jackson could and _would_ do what was necessary. He figured Carter would, too. The wildcard, however, was Dr. Deacon. He knew that his friend and brother-in-law thought very highly of Henry, and from what he had seen himself, that was well deserved. But he also knew that Henry was essentially, a pacifist. He wasn't someone who liked the military applications of Global's technology.

"I recommend retaliation as well, Mr. President," O'Neill said carefully.

Daniel had been looking at the floor until O'Neill used the title. His head snapped up and he looked sternly at his friend. Then he softened as he realized that the General was not teasing, as he first suspected, but showing respect. O'Neill almost never saluted, and he certainly wouldn't use a title where Jackson was concerned. "Come on, Jack. It's still Daniel to you three."

O'Neill nodded. Then he looked to Henry. "Dr. Deacon; Jack has told me that you aren't someone who is entirely comfortable with the military aspects of GD."

Henry nodded, but said. "General. Jack is right. But, I'm not someone who will sit idly by and allow my race to be destroyed. I understand that the Aschen will be back if we don't stop them, and to stop them, we'll have to make a show of force. You tell me what you need, and we'll make it. Remember, I'm still subject to the EWOCs on that, but I think under the circumstances, unless you want a doomsday machine, we'll be able to supply it." He paused, then looked O'Neill in the eye. "You understand, General. I don't like it, but it's necessary. I'm not blinded by my ideals."

O'Neill nodded. Then he turned to Jack.

"Disclosure has been made, Jack, but that doesn't end your job. As a matter of fact, the way I see it, your job just got alot harder. It's no longer a blanket, nothing gets out like in the past. Now there will be lots more filtering. How much do we want to let through to the public right now?

Jack was just a bit incredulous; "Well… I think people are going to notice that Southern California turned into a nuclear wasteland," he said harshly. "And one or two people will notice the disappearance of Tokyo and New York. Or Chicago. Or any of the other cities around the world that were destroyed." He calmed a bit and said. "I know. Getting… frustrated, isn't the answer. Honestly, Jack. I'm thinking that this really isn't a case of what do we tell. It's what don't we tell, because things are pretty much out in the open right now."

Daniel nodded, then said, "What about the toxin? Does that need to get out?"

Henry shook his head. "If news of that toxin got out to the general public, we'd have a panic. Until we have an answer as to how people will be effected, that shouldn't be spread."

"Any news on what it does?" Daniel asked.

Carter nodded his head. "Duncan got here late last night, and he, Ally and Zoe spent the night talking. I listened until it got too technical for me. Then I tried to sleep. I ended up dreaming of DNA molecules being attacked by viroids and peptide chains with big teeth. It wasn't a good dream."

He drew in a deep breath, "The long and the short of it is, it's a virus that forces a person's white blood cells to attack their own body. They literally start to be dismantled from the inside out."

He shuddered. "Duncan brought a picture of a victim who drank some of the water from Lake Victoria. A person's body basically becomes one big infection, but it's faster than Staph or any other infection than we've ever seen here on Earth. The picture I saw was not something I'd like to see again." He turned to Henry. "Remember when the guy froze solid at the spa?" Henry nodded and looked decidedly uncomfortable, remembering the thawed version of the scientist in question. "It was _worse._"

Daniel saw Henry's face and decided not to ask too many questions. O'Neill asked however.

Jack answered. "He was frozen _solid_, Jack. He was brittle, and he was knocked over. He shattered, and Jo had to sweep up the remains. They thawed in Henry's garage. It was nasty."

"And this was _worse_?" O'Neill asked, eyes widening.

Jack just nodded.

"Ok. So the public definitely does _not_ need to know about the toxin. Anything else?" O'Neill seemed to be happy to change the subject.

Henry cleared his throat. "I have something that I think would be detrimental if it got out."

O'Neill asked, "And that is?"

"Douglas Fargo and Walter Harriman went down to LA to investigate what happened there," Henry said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. "_Phoenix _got caught in the blast of the Aschen warship. There was a crack that had developed in her superstructure, allowing superheated gases from the explosion to enter her engine room. This caused the reactor to go critical almost instantly. Over ninety percent of the devastation was caused by the explosion of the Naquadria reactor powering _Phoenix_. It was the same for the radioactive fallout. _We_ know what happened, but the general public doesn't, nor do I think the facts would matter to most of them. In the state of mind they are in, they would probably just hear that the explosion from one of our _own_ ships caused the death of millions of humans."

Jack saw by the expression on O'Neill's face that Henry's surmise was accurate.

"You know," O'Neill said, somewhat bitterly. "This is _not_ the way I hoped disclosure would happen."

When the four grim faced men left the conference room, they found an equally grim faced Allison Carter waiting for them.

"Would you gentlemen head back into that room please?" she asked.

They complied. The door was shut, and Allison looked towards Aiden Ford, meaningfully.

"Oh man. Is it really _that_ bad?" her husband asked, seeing her look.

Allison merely nodded.

O'Neill reassured her. "If we decide not to divulge anything you are about to say, Dr. Carter, it will never leave this room. Ford is a good man. He spent a lot of time on Atlantis, working with Sheppard."

"He'd better be," She turned toward Ford. "No offense, Mr. Ford."

"None taken, Ma'am," Ford replied.

"First off, I want you all to know that we're not going to stop looking for a fix for this toxin thing, but we've found something which will work, and work quite well. But there are some potential drawbacks."

"Tritonin," Daniel said.

"How did you know?" Allison asked.

"Well," Daniel replied. "Jack said the virus attacks the immune system, and you just said that there were drawbacks. I guessed."

"I'd say there are drawbacks!" O'Neill exploded. "Once you go on tritonin, you don't get off. That would be condemning the human race to drug addiction!"

"As I said, General. We're not stopping our search. I just want you to know that there _is _a viable option to death. Hopefully we can find something else, but if we can't, we can synthesize tritonin and at least keep our race alive." Allison's voice was ice.

O'Neill settled down at her words. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I realize you're working hard. All of you." He sat down and looked at the acting commander in chief. "Daniel. This is your call."

Daniel sat down heavily in the chair he had recently vacated. He reached up and yanked his tie off, then threw it across the room. "I need something heavier to throw," he said to no one in particular. "I didn't expect to be making this kind of decision this morning." He sighed and looked up at Allison. "How long will it take to synthesize enough tritonin, Dr. Carter?"

"We're not a production facility here, Sir," she told him. "Not for the scale needed for this." She paused for a few moments, crunching numbers in her head. "For us to make it, would take approximately three months."

"And that's almost three months too long for the first casualties," Daniel said glumly.

She nodded. "We'll have to get other manufacturers going. No matter what, we're going to lose more people. There's no way around it, even if we start manufacturing now."

Daniel looked over at O'Neill. Then to Jack. "I don't see much of a choice here, do you?"

Both of the men shook their heads, then Daniel turned back to Allison. "Start manufacturing. Co-ordinate with Jack to decide which companies to use. This falls within his scope, because of the possibility of information getting out." He looked to Henry. "Henry, if you can come up with a way to manufacture suitable amounts of tritonin, I'd love to hear about it now."

Henry started for the door. "I'm on it, Mr. President." He stopped before leaving. "Can I…?" he asked, gesturing at the door.

Daniel nodded. "Yes. Get to it."

With that, Henry was gone.

"You know, Sir," Jack said to him. "If it can be done quicker, he'll find a way."

Daniel looked O'Neill in the eye, but spoke to Carter. "I know. I just hope he can do it in time."

It turned out that they were able to synthesize enough Tritonin by converting three of the world's largest pharmaceutical manufacturers to production. As well, Henry was able to develop a system whereby a year's worth of doses would be delivered on schedule for an entire year, but he couldn't speed the production any. Due to the severity of the situation Earth contacted the Pangarans, the original developers of Tritonin. The Pangarans had a massive production capability for Tritonin and were experts at creating it. The Pangarans agreed to manufacture Tritonin and provide Earth with several experts to teach people to manufacture it.

Henry's time release for Tritonin took a bit longer to manufacture than the standard variety, but they really wanted to make sure that people weren't allergic to the drug before they gave it to them. Not that it really mattered. If they were allergic, they would die. As simple as that. Because there was no alternative, they began trying to push people through and get them acclimated to the drug. Some succeeded, but many more didn't.

There was a positive side to all of this that took people by surprise. Many previously terminally ill people were cured of their diseases. However there was a massive public outcry from people that had lost loved ones to illnesses that the SGC obviously had been able to cure since the discovery of Tritonin. The fact that the cure was addictive, was conveniently ignored.

However, most people eventually came to terms with the fact that the government had not wanted to create an unending dependency in a drug that there was no good supply for.

Another positive outgrowth of Tritonin was completely unforeseen. Because it _was_ used when needed, and saved millions of people, the public started to see the current leadership as a benevolent friend. This actually helped people absorb the new facts of existence.

They looked to the government for leadership like never before. Jack O'Neill became a worldwide hero, as did all of the Stargate teams. But SG1 became legendary. Those who had served on SG1 were placed on a pedestal because of O'Neill. It made no difference that some of SG1 had not served with O'Neill. They were still revered because of the name.

The governments of the world re-confirmed their support of O'Neill as head of home-world-security. As well, the governments decided that they needed to form a council to govern the world. To build moral, they sent ballots out to allow the people to elect their own high chancellor. On the ballot were the names of several people who would make a good chancellor, but the majority of the people rejected any suggestions from their governments. They wanted a hero and started a massive write-in campaign. O'Neill would have been wonderful, but it was recognized that he was needed in the capacity in which he was serving. So the name 'Daniel Jackson' was written on approximately eighty-nine percent of the ballots that were returned. Daniel was flattered, but tried to refuse - until Vala talked him into accepting, that is.

Of course, it was not due simply to tritonin that the world governments were cooperating with each other. There was also the desire to show alien cultures, such as the Asgard, that Earth was unified.

In thanks to the Jaffa for coming to Earth's aid during the attack, several of the Aschen Warships were given to the Free Jaffa Nation to study. Dr. Bill Lee wrote several manuals that were included. These would allow them to upgrade their ships to the standards of the Aschen's. The Jaffa were very pleased; especially when they learned that the Aschen were able to use this technology to force back three Ori motherships.

Once Earth completed its first worldwide election for High Chancellor, the Asgard and Nox contacted them. Earth was shocked as they both wanted to create diplomatic ties with the new government. The treaty was simple, yet elegant in its intention and the exact wording of the language prevented any loss of meaning. After reading through the treaty, Daniel Jackson, the first High Chancellor of Earth, signed the treaty making Earth, officially, the Fifth Race in the Alliance of Great Races.

The new government was based in the cityship, Atlantis. It was decided to use it because no one nation owned it. The scientific expedition to Atlantis had been multinational, and it remained that way. As a result, a spot removed from the rest of the nations of the world was chosen for the city's permanent home. It was moved to a spot just north of the Midway Islands, in the Pacific. Many people thought it was wrong for the city to be placed in the Pacific Ocean, since according to legend, it was supposed to be in the Atlantic Ocean. However, High Chancellor Jackson pointed out that the city's actual home on Earth had been in Antarctica, and while _it_ was also multinational, he didn't think the government of Earth should be frozen.

The two remaining of the great races, other than Terrans, sent representatives to Earth to help with the settling of a government, and to be ambassadors. The Asgard considered sending Thor, as he had a good working relationship with Earth, but he was needed in his capacity as High Commander of the Asgard Fleet. Loki was considered as well, but it was decided that, considering his experiments on humans, this was not a good idea. Finally, another Asgard whose name was well known on Earth was chosen, although the older form of his name was preferred by him: Wodin.

The Nox sent Lya as ambassador to Earth. This gave pause to O'Neill, as he was sure she would oppose all of Earth's battles, and even the war with the Ori. "Any Nox will oppose them, Jack," Daniel pointed out to him. O'Neill had to admit that this was certainly true. Lya brought her husband, Anteaus, and son, Nefrayu with her to Earth, as she didn't want to be gone from them for very long. Certainly, she had the power to go home to Gaia anytime she wished, but she said that this took much power.

When the Free Jaffa Nation saw that others were sending ambassadors, they wanted to send one as well. They decided to send Rak'nor, who was a friend of Teal'c. When he arrived, Teal'c spent time showing his friend around Atlantis, and then they disappeared for a couple of days. It was rumored that they had toured some of the rougher neighborhoods of several cities, observing and teaching, but this was never substantiated.

Finally, the last of the ambassadors for the present time arrived. This ambassador was from the Tok'ra, and O'Neill had misgivings. In his dealings with the Tok'ra, he had been less than impressed with their single minded approach to the fight with the Goa'uld. Now, however, he was about to meet a Tok'ra on his own turf.

"Incoming wormhole!"

They were standing in the Atlantis Gateroom, waiting a safe distance from the gate. O'Neill was in his dress uniform. Jackson and then Carter stood to the left side of him. They were both in suit and tie. Officially, Carter was still the sheriff of Eureka, but his sheriff's uniform was deemed not suitable for his current duties. His status as sheriff was about to change however. The current administration needed his specialties as liaison to the people of the world.

The shield was put up on the gate, just in case someone hijacked the signal and tried to send their own person through.

"We have an ID for the Tok'ra being received."

Richard Woolsey was standing slightly behind the three. At the confirmation of the ID, he turned and ordered the shields lowered.

The gate flashed into a stable wormhole, then a woman stepped through. She was a petite blonde woman, and O'Neill recognized her immediately. "Now I'm sorry I put on this monkey suit," he muttered. Jackson nudged him in the side with his elbow; "Knock it off, Jack," he said out of the side of his mouth. Jackson stepped forward. "Anise. Welcome to Earth."

She stepped forward and held out her hand in the Terran fashion. "Thank you, Chancellor. It's good to be here again."

He took her hand and led her forward. "Of course, you know General O'Neill." He turned to Carter. "And this is Jack Carter."

At his name, she started. "Not…."

Jack held out his hand. "I'm Samantha Carter's brother. Jacob was my father."

"Your father was a great man, Mr. Carter."

"It's Marshal Carter," he corrected her.

Jackson introduced Mr. Woolsey, then they left the control room. Mr. Woolsey showed her to her quarters, and after they had left her alone, Carter cornered O'Neill. "What was that all about, Jack?"

"We've had several run-ins with Anise. She's very ethnocentric toward the Tok'ra. And she doesn't seem to give a care for any other race. In short, I don't like her." He started to walk away, then turned back. "At all." Then he turned away and stalked off.

The next day, Jackson was in his office, working on the speech he was supposed to give at the treaty signing ceremony. He was having some trouble saying what he wanted to, and not for the first time, wondered how he had gotten roped into being the High Chancellor of Earth.

There was a knock on his door, and without looking up, he said, "Come."

The door opened and a man walked in. "Good morning, Chancellor," He said.

Jackson looked up. "Oh, hello Dr. Marten. Are you getting moved in ok?"

The man nodded, and motioned to a chair, inquiring if he could sit. Jackson nodded, and the man sat down. He had dark hair, immaculately smoothed straight back, and a ready laugh stemming from a wonderful sense of humor. He also had curiously tan eyes - so much so, that Jackson sometimes wondered if one of his ancestors had been albino. Whatever the cause, he liked him very much. "Please, Chancellor. Call me Eric." He sat very erect, hands lightly on the arms of the chair. "I am very happy with the accommodations that have been provided for me. It is a shame, however, because I was hoping to be able to spend some more time with my daughter, but I suppose I shall get used to it."

"I understand, Eric. It would have been nice to keep Atlantis in Lake Archimedes, but you gotta do what you gotta do. The Council demanded that the capital not be in any country, so. The middle of the Pacific it is." He smiled at Marten.

Marten laughed, and then asked, "What do you know of Doug? Holly is set on marrying him, and I do not know an iota about him."

Jackson nodded again, then said, "I don't know a lot about him personally, either Eric. But I do know his actions saved lots of people in the Aschen battle. And he's been partially responsible for the Terran hyperdrive. He's a brilliant scientist."

Marten turned serious. "I realize that, Chancellor. I have had several dialogues with him, and in each one, he has impressed me with his knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology. Basically, he is what every man would want for their daughter, as far as that goes. But what I would like to know is what his personality is like. Each time he talks to me, he seems to freeze. His mind shows through, but his personality does not. I do not know what I am doing to elicit that response in him, but for Holly's sake, I would like to put him at rest. I do not know how to do that, because I am unfamiliar with his personality."

Jackson thought about it for a bit. "You know what, Eric? You should talk to Jack Carter, his wife Allison, or even Henry Deacon. Someone who has lived in Eureka and knows Fargo. I'm certain one of them could help you to get to know him." Jackson paused for a moment. He thought about what Marten had just said. The reaction Marten was getting from Fargo was not unlike the reaction Jackson was getting from Marten. It seemed to Daniel that Marten became somewhat wooden whenever they spoke. Daniel hoped it wasn't discomfort because of his position. He was depending on Eric Marten as his science advisor to the United States. Previously, Marten had held the position of science advisor for Mark Gilmor. Daniel had stolen him from Gilmor because he recognized the brilliance of the man. If only they could get past the discomfort Marten seemed to show whenever they talked.

Marten stood, and held out his hand. "Thank you, Chancellor. I will do that."

They shook hands, and Jackson said, "I'm glad I could help."

The council chambers of Atlantis had been left in one of the towers. What they were originally was anyone's guess, but they made a room very reminiscent of the United States Senate floor. What was different here, however, was the ability to make the wall behind the platform transparent, so the people in the chamber could see the sky beyond the tower. It was actually looking out of the city, as this tower was on the edge, so the view was uninterrupted. The wall was transparent now, and the setting sun could be seen through it.

On the platform was a lectern and a table. On the lectern was a white quill pen in a stand and a gavel. On the table were five identical pens, set beside each seat, which were, in themselves, very ornate.

Daniel Jackson stood in the council chambers of Atlantis. He was actually alone in the room, but it didn't seem that way. Each spot representative of a nation of Earth had a person in it. Or rather, each spot had a holographic image of a person in it. There was a balcony set up for people observing the sessions that would go on in this room in the near future. Several people were finally allowed into it and sat down. As well, there were cameras which would broadcast his image around the globe. One minute before it was time for his speech to start, two people joined him on the platform. They were real people, not holograms. Jack O'Neil, and Jack Carter. As well, four people filed into the front of the room, facing the platform. They took the four seats that had been set up there. They were the four ambassadors from different planets. It was time.

Jackson walked to the podium and started speaking. "Since the birth of the United States, the President of that country has addressed his people at the beginning of his speeches as, 'My Fellow Americans.' It occurred to me, that we would need an address like that for our people. 'Earthlings', of course, sounds too sci-fi. 'Earthers' just doesn't have the proper ring to it. The term Tau'ri is used for us around the galaxy, but it was created by the Goa'uld, and I don't see using a term created by our enemies as fitting. 'Humans'... Well. That would work, but I think 'Terrans' is the term we are looking for. It fits us as a planetary identity. So I would like to address 'My Fellow Terrans'.

"We are here in this first act of the Council of Earth, to ratify a treaty signed by the nations of our world, and another treaty, signed with four other races.

"The first of the two treaties being signed tonight, will allow for the unification of our world, and will grant us the ability to act as one body. This is necessary as we are no longer alone in the universe. We have found that we are one world in a host of them, many of whom contain humans who have been removed from their original home for one reason or another, like the Jaffa. There are also races like the Nox, and the Asgard, and the Tok'ra. We need to take the step to unify so we no longer bicker among ourselves. Today we are growing up and joining with these other worlds, and we cannot do it as a divided world.

"As a united Earth, we will sign the second of the treaties with the Free Jaffa Nation, the Nox, the Asgard, and the Tok'ra.

"Long ago, there were the Four Great Races in our Universe. They were the Asgard, the Nox, the Furlings, and the Alterrans. Two of those races are not here now. But in the races that have a vested interest in defeating the Ori, three more are replacing the Furlings and the Alterrans: The Terrans, the Free Jaffa, and the Tok'ra.

"These treaties are representative of our joining together for the purpose of making a united front against the Ori. This front is not to wage war, but to say, 'No Further will you come.' We are making the statement that if the Ori comes against one of us, they come against all of us.

"The definition of an _icon_ is, 'a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something.' This treaty that we are signing, is iconic of the stand we are taking against the Ori. Therefore, this treaty will be known as the 'Treaty of Icon'.

"This is a day that will need to be remembered from now on into perpetuity. Our children and our children's children will hear about this day in generations to come, because for the first time in the Terran's history, Earth is united."

With that, there was a thunder of applause from the auditorium. Great care had been taken to make sure that, even though the delegates were holograms, their realism was complete, so even the sound of their applause was as real as it could be made.

Jack Carter, who had recently accepted the duties of Chief of Staff for Daniel Jackson, came to the lectern now. He held up a bundle of documents. "This treaty has been brought to each of you, and has been duly signed and witnessed in each of your countries." For the benefit of those in the audience and watching on television, who were not privy to the wording of the treaty, he explained further. "It promises an end to war on this planet, and offers stiff penalties for those who engage in it. It allows each of our countries to maintain its sovereignty, while still allowing for the government of the Federation of Earth Nations, and it's government which will be housed here, in Atlantis. All that remains, is for Chancellor Jackson to sign it."

Daniel Jackson again moved to the lectern, took the old fashioned white quill pen which had been set in a holder at the front of it, and signed his name to the FEN treaty.

Carter took the lectern again. "This treaty also allows the High Chancellor to sign the treaty with the four representatives from other worlds, on your behalf." Carter was having fun, although he couldn't believe he was here, lecturing the leaders of the nations of Earth. He felt like adding a few choice phrases of his own, but he stuck to the speech he had memorized and fretted over as Ally helped him with his suit and tie earlier. "It allows him to speak for this world in all matters. Except in time of War, this will only be done with the approval of a majority from you, the Nations of Earth."

Jackson was watching the four in front, and at the mention of War, he saw Lya of the Nox, shudder. Carter went on. "Is there a majority vote for the Nations of Earth to sign the Treaty of Icon with the worlds represented here tonight? Signal with raised hand." It was just a formality done for the benefit of the cameras. Each delegate had already signed their name to an agreement saying that they wished the treaty. For something this important, a simple raising of hand would not be used. However, each delegate raised their hand, and the camera swept over the auditorium to show the people of Earth that, for the first time in Terran history, their leaders were in full agreement. "Let the record show that High Chancellor Jackson is acting with the full approval of the Federation of Earth Nations as he signs the Treaty of Icon." With that, Daniel Jackson moved to a table to the right of the lectern, and the four ambassadors rose as one and also moved to the table. Each sat down, and starting with the Anise, the treaty was signed and sealed by each representative, until it reached Jackson. He looked up at the delegates of Earth, and then up to the balcony. He caught Vala's eye, and saw her beaming at him. He smiled back, and then, took the quill pen, and signed "Daniel Jackson, High Chancellor, Earth" to the parchment of the treaty. Then, in an act designed to symbolize the importance of the occasion, he poured some sealing wax onto the parchment, and shoved the ring that had been provided him for just such an occasion into it.

As soon as Jackson placed the seal of the Federation of Earth Nations on the document, a signal was relayed to someone on the pier directly below the council chambers. A button was pressed, and several fuses were lit, sending fireworks into the now completely dark sky west of Atlantis. They arced out over the water and blossomed in line with the transparent wall behind Jackson as he stood and held up the signed treaty for all to see. The booms from the rockets were completely drowned out by the applause from the delegates and balcony alike.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's note: We wish to point out that we own neither Stargate nor Eureka. Please review!_

_**Chapter 8**_

The combined fleet of the Terrans, Free Jaffa, and Asgard was sitting on the outskirts of the Heliopolis system. Dozens of ships were waiting for the order to come from Earth to begin their strike against the Aschen.

On the bridge of his ship, Thor was looking over the intelligence report detailing the abilities of the Aschen. He was sorely disappointed. The Aschen had used up the last of their strength in their futile effort to capture Earth. They had less than 15 ships and all were damaged.

A few minutes later, the last of the crews arrived on the Earth ships. Thor was glad that these personnel were not on his ships. They were news crews. They were meant to show the Terran civilians how this war would be fought. Many had only seen the war over their skies. Thor heard from O'Neill that the news crews were traveling with the fleet to help raise morale among the Earth Civilians.

Thor understood why this was important, but like many other commanders, he despised having to cater to civilians that would simply be in the way. He was immensely grateful that The Asgard civilians knew to follow the orders of the military. The Replicator war cured the Asgard of any lingering civilian dislike the military.

Finally the order was given and the fleet jumped into Hyperspace. Thor looked at the readouts on his computer and grumbled. He was massively disappointed at how slow his ship was traveling. He knew that he had to wait for the Jaffa and Terran ships. The plan necessitated that the fleet arrive together.

As the ships dropped out of hyperspace, Thor prepared to give the order to open fire on the remaining ships. The combined fleet would quickly remove the threat represented by them. He never gave the order, however.

"This is the Aschen Confederation President, calling the combined fleet approaching Aschen Prime. We surrender. We are standing down. Do not fire! Again I say, we surrender."

Instead of ordering the attack, Thor opened a channel to the rest of the fleet. "This is Supreme Commander Thor. The Aschen Confederation has surrendered. Stand by for orders." He then beamed the Aschen President aboard his ship.

The man materialized a few feet away from Thor, and he was terrified. "Remain calm," Thor told him, without any appearance of compassion. He didn't feel any. This man had ordered the death of millions of Terrans. If the man was terrified, so be it. Thor manipulated his communications system again, and quickly heard, "Jackson here."

"Greetings, Chancellor Jackson. This is Thor. The Aschen have surrendered."

There was a pause. "But you just got there."

"I am afraid they saw our fleet and surrendered without a shot, Chancellor. I have the president of the Aschen Confederation aboard my ship. Would you like to speak to him?"

It would take some time for Daniel Jackson to develop the skills of a seasoned diplomat. "Not really, Thor. I'd prefer to…" He stopped and regrouped. "Yeah. I suppose I will talk to him."

Thor appeared unruffled by Jackson's slip away from diplomacy, but the truth of the matter was, Thor would gladly help Jackson in whatever he wished to do to this… paltry excuse of a human. Even Lya of the Nox had approved of what they were going to do to these people. There would be no killing, but there would be a considerable amount of instilling fear.

Jackson, for his part, quickly put a completely emotionless expression on his face as a hologram of him quickly formed on Thor's holo emitter. He looked around, and saw the Aschen President cowering where he had materialized. Thor was enjoying making this person cower, too. He slowly zoomed in the image of Jackson, making it grow larger and larger almost imperceptibly. He finally stopped when Jackson appeared over eight feet tall. The Asgard were masters of instilling awe into others, and while his expression never changed, he slipped on a recorder to save the meeting for posterity.

Jackson stared at the Aschen President for a long moment. The man was clearly afraid, and if their intelligence was right, he had every reason to be. The Aschen had no way to wage any type of war anymore. "My terms for your surrender are as follows:

"Your people will be relocated off of Aschen Prime. We will place you on a planet near the edge of the galaxy, where there are just enough trace metals for you to survive, but not enough to develop a thriving society. You will go through the stargate to this world with just the clothes on your back, then the stargate will be removed, along with the DHD. We will beam down enough supplies for you to last two weeks, but after that time, you are on your own."

The president started to sputter. Now, he was not afraid, but mad. How DARE these Tauri threaten this! The Aschen Confederation had been enormous at it's power! This Tauri Chancellor had no idea of military might! Then he realized that the Tauri Chancellor was smiling, and he knew that he would have no choice. The chancellor then confirmed his worst fears.

"Take care before you reject this offer, Mr. President. You have fifteen very damaged ships, and they are under the guns of well over six hundred undamaged. Should you refuse what is a very generous offer, under the circumstances, we can and will destroy every last piece of technology on this planet. In doing so, you will have a burned out hulk for a homeworld. Your colonists will be transported back here as well. You will have to support all of your colonists on this planet, with no resources to do so. Your people will die very quickly.

"Contrast that to what will happen if you accept our offer. You will be transported to a world where you can survive. All of you will be able to survive. It is your choice, Mr. President, but I will not wait long for you to make it."

Thor made a quick movement with his hand that dialed an address on the stargate, while the president was talking to Jackson. He had seen that people were massing near the stargate. He did not want someone dialing the gate while negotiations were being made.

On the planet's surface, people were waiting for a gate address to be dialed. The President had told his people that he would try to hold off the Terrans long enough for them to escape through the gate. Once the gate opened, hundreds of people surged towards and through it. The official who had been supposed to dial the gate tried to shout that he had not opened it, but over the shouting of the crowd, no one but those near him heard.

Those who went through, however, ended up on the planet that the chancellor had picked out for them. It wasn't where they were supposed to be and they knew it. One or two decided to try going back through the gate, even though they knew they couldn't. A man standing near the gate tried to stop them. He threw himself in front of one of them, and they both fell into the gate, although his lower leg didn't make it past the event horizon. Someone had enough presence of mind to grab it and pull him out, and in so doing, both of the men were pulled free. Had they not, they would have been killed when the gate shut down. The one who they were not able to pull free was dead. There was no way to retrieve him from the gate.

Back on board the Thor's ship, when Jackson finished and was waiting for the President's decision, Thor said, "If I may, Chancellor." At Jackson's nod, Thor turned to the President. "Where were the people going to go, Mr. President?"

"What?"

"Your people on the planet. They were massing to go through the Stargate. Where were you sending them?"

"That is not your concern." His demeanor had changed to triumph. "They have gone through by now, and you may do what you want with me. My death will insure the life of my people."

Thor shook his head slowly. "Your people have indeed gone through the gate, Mr. President. But not to the planet you had chose. Instead, I activated the stargate before your people could. They went to the planet we had planned to send them to. There is no DHD at the other end, either. Your people are where we intended to send them."

Jackson heard this, and nodded in approval. This had been considered, and Thor had followed his instructions to the letter. "So while you were 'negotiating' with me, you were trying to do what we refer to as an 'end run'. So be it. These 'negotiations' are at an end." Jackson's image disappeared, and Thor manipulated another control. The President disappeared as well.

When the President reappeared, he was in a room about six foot cubed. There was a vent in the ceiling that was allowing fresh, warm air in as well as a lighting panel. Other than that there were no features on the blank walls. He wondered how long he would have to wait. He also wondered if the Asgard had been telling the truth about his people.

Even before the President was beamed to the holding cell, Thor was speaking to the rest of the fleet. "The Aschen have tried to escape. Those who are still in this system, and in others may try. Remove the DHDs from their stargates. We will need to transport them to their new home. Commence operations."

The combined fleet started the mop up of the Aschen system, as well as their conquered systems. There was no more communication with the governments of the planets. The President had ruined the possibility of that happening. The DHDs were beamed away from each gate, so another, unauthorized destination could not be dialed, and then the people were simply herded towards the fleet dialed stargates and they went through.

After the last of the people went through the gates, the President was beamed to the surface of Aschen Prime, however, his clothing had not transported with him. The Stargate had been moved to a desert location on the surface, so there was no place for the man to run to. Thor beamed himself down as well. He stood a few feet away from the president, and activated the stargate. It flashed into an active wormhole. "You have two choices, Mr. President. You may choose to step through this gate, and rejoin your people, or you may choose to remain here. Keep in mind, however, that there is no water within five days walking distance, nor is there any shelter. If you choose to remain here, that will end your life because I will beam aboard my vessel, and take the stargate with me. I will not return to Aschen Prime, ever. Nor will any other person. Choose now because I am leaving. I will leave the Stargate here for the remainder of it's open duration, then I will beam it up. Goodbye"

With that, Thor beamed aboard his vessel. The President sat down on the steps before the gate and considered his options. While he thought he was sacrificing himself for his people, he had been brave. But now, there was no sacrifice. His people were on the other side of this gate, safe. If he stepped through, he would rejoin them. But he would be in disgrace. He would be naked for all to see. He sat for several minutes, unsure of what he should do. Finally, he stood and faced the gate. He took one step towards it, and the gate closed. He had stayed too long, undecided. Then, a few moments later, the gate disappeared, leaving him standing alone on the platform where the gate used to be. He sat down again, and started to cry.

On the new home of the Aschen, people were milling around aimlessly, near the gate. Suddenly, a ship lowered into the atmosphere near where the gate stood. The gate disappeared, and the ship, a Terran GD-305, hovered nearby. There was a sound, like thunder, as a loudspeaker somewhere on the underside of the ship came alive. Then, a voice sounded, incredibly loud. "This is Colonel John Sheppard of the Terran ship, Nathan Stark. Welcome to your new home. You will find that it is a nice home, and that you can build lives for yourselves quite nicely here. There are no raw materials with which you can generate electricity, however. The Bronze age is about as far as you will be able to get here, but there is ample food and water to build a thriving bronze age empire.

"We will shortly remove any items from your persons which represent technology of any kind. It is early spring here, and you will have a summer through which you can store up food for the winter. The year is approximately four hundred days here, so I suggest you store up a lot.

"Ok. I've just been informed that you are technology free, so I'll say goodbye, and we'll be on our way. Have a nice life."

The Nathan Stark gracefully pivoted, and started rising through the atmosphere until it dwindled to a point, then the point became a line which stretched into infinity and disappeared as the ship entered hyperspace.

The Ashen were alone.

Once Aschen Prime was devoid of Aschen, Dr. Bill Lee was beamed into the Aschen capital building and began downloading their Database into a computer. Hopefully the computers would have a cure to the disease that was used on Earth. While looking through the data, Dr. Lee found that the Aschen had located Tollona and that there were Tollan survivors in an Aschen prison on one of their other planets.

Dr. Lee informed Thor of this fact, and the ship conducting the evacuation of that planet was told. The Tollan were promptly beamed aboard, and treated by the medical staff.

It took little more than one Terran day to transport all of the remaining Aschen to their new world, and the quick, bloodless response to the attack endeared the Terran Chancellor to his people even more than he had been.

The Surviving Tollan were brought back to Earth by the Asgard. Thankfully Narim, a Tollan with whom SG1 had multiple dealings, was still alive and was able to speak for the Tollans. Several years ago, they had been found by the Aschen and brought to their home world. The Tollan thought that they had been saved by a human race just as advanced as they were. However they soon learned the truth of the Aschen. They tried to leave but were thrown into prison while the Aschen tried to crack the secrets of Tollan technology. Unfortunately, the technology base was too different and they needed the Tollan prisoners' help. They had been tortured to get the information the Aschen needed. As much as possible, the Tollen had resisted, but the Aschen had a device which would read their memories if they resisted.

"How come they didn't just read your memories and be done with it?" Sam asked Narim on a visit to his hospital room. "Why did they need to torture you?"

Narim was laying on a bed, unmoving, as he had been for many days while his skin was repaired from multiple burns.

"Honestly Sam, I think they just enjoyed it. But, they didn't get much from us. Yes, they learned how to use our technology, and how to build it, but I don't think they were able to blend it into their own technology. The differences are just too great."

"Well, even if they did learn how to build your technology and expand upon it, they can't use it now," Sam said matter of factly.

"Did the President really die rather than join his people?"

Sam nodded her head. "We found his body on the stargate platform right before we left Aschen Prime. He had apparently tried to stand at one point, and fallen. He hit his head on the platform, and gave himself a concussion. Dr. Fraser thinks it unlikely that he woke up after that."

Narim nodded. He was a peaceful man, who wouldn't normally hurt a fly, and although he didn't say anything more about the Aschen President, Sam could tell that he was just fine with the man's fate.

The Tollan were all on their way to recovery, but unfortunately, Dr. Lee wasn't able to find any cure for what the Aschen had done to Earth. What he did find, however, shocked him. In a computer file that he was easily able to open, he found records of the Aschen genetic experiments dating back for the last hundred years.

In the database, he found experiments on people, goa'uld, plant life, even entire ecosystems. One of Aschen Prime's sister planets had once been a thriving world with an ecosystem rivaling that of Aschen Prime itself. Now, it was a wasteland, devoid of life, and with almost no atmosphere at all.

The Aschen had worked for decades, trying to perfect terraforming. In several experiments, their work had led to results similar to their sister planet. But in others, they found things that could be weaponized. On one planet, they had developed a bacteria that metabolized water in a way that would cause it to react in a human body similarly to alcohol. On another planet, the same organism, with a bit of tweaking, created an acid out of water when exposed to normal, unmodified water. These planets were in the gate network and their addresses were carefully noted. Not only would it be unfortunate for someone to travel to one of these planets unaware of the dangers, but there also existed possible strategic uses for such oddities. If someone started using any of them as weapons, Earth wanted to know about it.


	9. Chapter 9

_The authors wish to say that we own nothing of Stargate or Eureka._

_We'd really like to hear your opinions of this story. Please review!_

**_Chapter 9_**

Samantha O'Neill stepped out of the stargate in Section 5 of GD. She was very tired, and was glad to see her husband waiting for her. She wasn't quite as happy to see her brother standing waiting too, however. Not that she wouldn't normally be happy to see Jack, but she was just way too tired tonight. Both of the men seemed to read her mood at the same time.

"I'll talk to you in the morning," her brother said.

"No, Jack, That's ok. What is it? "

"Really, Sam, it can wait. "

She was about to protest again, when something completely unexpected happened. The stargate opened again, and an old man walked through. What was stranger yet was that a girl of about twelve followed him.

The old man had a beard, long flowing silver robes, and a long staff.

For several moments, no one could speak. Finally, Carter found his voice. "Who are you?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Jack. I just needed to talk with Samantha and O'Neill," the old man said, as if that explained everything.

"You need to talk to me? " Sam was clearly perplexed. She wasn't sure who this old man was but clearly he knew her. He had her at a disadvantage, and it was not something she liked.

"Who are you?" she asked the old man. She noticed that her husband had his hand poised to call for security, but had stopped. He knew this old man but couldn't place him. Then, suddenly he had it.

"Merlin," he said simply.

The O'Neills, Teal'c, Daniel and Vala, and the Carter's were sitting in Henry's office. The old man, Merlin, and the young girl were seated beside each other on a couch. Henry sat behind his desk. Jo Lupo stood at the door, glowering at Merlin.

"How did you get in here?" Henry asked. "This is a secure..." he noticed Carter shaking his head.

"This is Merlin, Henry. Of King Arthur fame. I'm not sure that all of the security in the world would stop him."

"Nor do I think we'll have much success in holding him, " Jackson said pointedly to Jo.

"So we're just going to let him waltz in here?" Jo was furious.

"And we'll have to let him waltz back out, " O'Neill said.

"Ms. Lupo, I assure you that I have a very good reason for coming here, if you will permit me to explain," the old man said.

Grudgingly, Jo nodded.

Merlin turned to Henry. "Dr. Deacon, how we got in here isn't important. Daniel is quite right that your security couldn't stop me." He turned to Jo. "It really is top notch security, Mz. Lupo. It is as good as the security on Atlantis at the height of the Wraith war. " Back to Henry. "I'm here for two reasons, actually. One is to bring Jade here, to her parents and the other is to help you in fighting the Ori. "

"Bring Jade to her parents?" Vala asked.

"Why yes."

"Who are her parents?" Teal'c asked.

"I'm terribly sorry. In all the confusion I didn't get a chance to introduce her to all of you. This is Jade O'Neill."

Once Merlin made the declaration that Jade was the daughter of Jack O'Neill and Sam, Allison ran to her lab, and grabbed a portable DNA scanner. She ran it over all three of them, as well as Merlin himself.

"Dr. Carter, I can tell you what you will find in your scans," the aged wizard told her.

She grimaced as she replied, "If you don't mind, I'll see for myself."

He nodded, then reached down to smooth out his robes. He stopped and eyed them for a couple of moments, then looked up at Henry. "Would you mind terribly if I changed into something a bit less…. out of date?"

"No, not at all. Do you have any….." He stopped as he realized that the robes Merlin was wearing were shortening, and changing color. They became a tan tunic with matching breeches. His long hair shortened as well as his whiskers, until he was actually bald on top with just a ring of graying hair and clean shaven. He looked for all the world not as an old wizard, but a man of probably around fifty.

"Much better," Merlin said with satisfaction. Even the timbre of his voice had changed. When he spoke again, his voice sounded much more formal and resonant, like that of someone accustomed to being listened to. "I'm sure you will be more comfortable with me looking like this as well."

"Ok…" Henry said as if he wasn't sure how to merge this into his scientific view of the universe, which indeed, he wasn't. "Would you like to explain your statements regarding young Jade here?"

"I would be happy to, Dr. Deacon, but first, I'll tell you what Dr. Carter is going to find, because this all will fit in together." At Henry's nod, Merlin began. "Jade is, in fact, the daughter of the O'Neills." He looked to Samantha, "When you found the videotape recorded by an alternate version of yourselves five thousand years ago, did you ever wonder what their lives were like so far out of their own time? That O'Neill and Samantha Carter found themselves in love and married in ancient Egypt just like you have done here, and they had a daughter. She was, and is, Jade. Dr. Carter's tests will confirm that."

"And more," Allison said from the door to Henry's office.

"Your computers are fast, Dr. Carter. I commend you for the speed at which you've run your tests," Merlin nodded.

"Thank you, Merlin. Now would you mind explaining how I find your DNA showing that you are related to both Sam O'Neill and my husband?"

"Certainly, Dr. Carter. The simplest way of explaining that is to tell you that I am related to all four of Jacob Carter's children."

Allison shook her head. "No, sir. You don't get off that easy. That's not the simplest way of explaining things at all, as it tells nothing more than my DNA test does."

"Alright, Dr. Carter. I will tell you the story, as much as I can." When Allison began to protest, Merlin held up a hand and said, "I assure you that, in time, you will know the whole story, but what I am about to tell you is all that I can reveal right now."

"The timeline goes through many twists and turns, drawing certain people together, and pushing others apart. Even in alternative timelines, you have seen that the four people known as SG1 were drawn together, whether in the Stargate program or not. When an alternative SG1 went into the past, five thousand years into the past, they were still drawn together.

"Samantha and Jack O'Neill got together then as well." As Merlin spoke, he shifted to look at Sam and her brother. "You two are related to me, as are your brother and sister. My daughter married Jacob Carter and had four children. You two and your siblings. Therefore, Jade is my great-granddaughter."

"Assuming that's true, why wouldn't Mom have said something about you?" Sam wanted to know.

"Yeah!" her brother exclaimed. "You'd think, 'Your grandfather is Merlin, the wizard of legend' would be something she would have said."

"Yes," Merlin said nodding, "And it probably would have gotten her thrown into a… What do you call it, 'loony bin'?"

"Well," Jack said, thinking about it. "Yeah. It probably would have."

"Wait a minute, Merlin," Jack O'Neill said. "You're an ancient, and if Sam and Jack are your grandchildren, why don't they have the ATA gene?"

"General O'Neill, that is a good question, and one which I assure you has a fascinating answer. You see, I don't need an ATA gene. I can run all the technology the ancients created just fine without one."

"Wait a minute," O'Neill, who was one of the few people born with an ATA gene, interjected. "You mean there's another way to control ancient tech?"

"Well, yes. But not very many people can do it that way, I'm afraid," Merlin answered. "I'm afraid that you wouldn't have been able to operate ancient technology without the gene."

"I have a question for you, Merlin," Sam said. "How can you help us fight the Ori? Won't the Others stop you?"

Merlin stood up, and straightened his tunic. Then he walked across the room and looked out onto the concourse below. He was clearly thinking about his answer. When he turned around, his face was grave. He looked at the ceiling for a moment, then back at Henry. "The 'Others' as you call them, Samantha, cannot observe us now. Nor do they even know that they can't observe us. You see; I am not an Ancient. I am from the same race, but I am not ascended. I am something else, and I could end the Ori's ability to make war right now, except that I cannot. There are things which must happen that I cannot change. If I were to do it, all things, in every time period, would cease to exist."

O'Neill was outraged. "I'll take that chance!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, but fortunately, I will not," Merlin answered. "Nor is it a chance, General O'Neill. It is a certainty. My powers are great, but there are some things I cannot do, and some things I cannot change, no matter how much I would like to. There are fixed points in time that must happen no matter what, and the death of one like me is one of those points."

Jackson looked startled. "The death of one like you?"

"Yes. The death of one like me."

Jackson looked positively pale. "Who must die, Merlin?"

Merlin walked over to Jackson, and put a hand on his shoulder. "You will learn the answers to all of this, Daniel, but it would be better if you didn't know too much, too soon. The time will come."

Jo was livid. "You tell us you're here to help, but you tell us only half of what we need to know! This is ridiculous! How can we trust you if you won't tell us everything?"

Jackson gently guided her to a seat. "Jo, I understand your frustration, but if what Merlin says is true, and I believe it is, then we really have no choice but to trust him. We can't stop him anyway. Even were he simply an Ancient, we couldn't. An Ancient is as far above us as we are above an amoeba. If Merlin can outclass one of them…." He left the rest unsaid. She was seeing his point, and it showed.

Samantha had another question. "So if you're this powerful, how was Ganos Lal able to 'keep an eye' on you?"

"Because I let her," Merlin said, matter of factly. "It served my purpose to allow the Ascended to think they had power over me. They don't know what I'm doing now, and they know they couldn't stop me if they did."

Allison was taken aback by what Merlin had just said. "It served your purpose?"

Merlin thought for a moment. "I'm terribly sorry. That must sound self-serving. I'm afraid that things sometimes come out that way. What I meant was that it was best if they thought they had some control. Eventually they found out that they didn't, but not until I let them discover it."

They spoke to Merlin for some time, and learned little else. It was evident that this was simply because Merlin didn't wish for them to learn more, and that frustrated the scientists, but O'Neill and Lupo even more. They weren't sure what to do under the circumstances.

Finally, it was time to make a decision as to what they should do regarding the two. "We need to discuss things, but who's going to watch Merlin while we do," O'Neill said.

"I hate to say this, Jack," Carter pointed out, "but what difference would it make if we tried to get privacy. From what I've seen, any privacy from Merlin would be an illusion."

Samantha glanced at Merlin, who was standing in the corner talking to Jade, quietly. "I don't know that we'd get a straight answer from him one way or another. What do we do with him? Or her? She's apparently my daughter, but I don't know a thing about her. Jack?" She was looking at her husband.

"My job, is the security of this planet, but now I'm being shown a kid who, in theory, is my responsibility to care for, but what if she's as powerful as her 'great-grandfather' appears to be. As Sam says, she's apparently my daughter, but she could also be one of the greatest dangers to this planet. It's quite a pickle."

"So do we take her with us, or leave her here?" Sam wondered.

Jackson had been quiet for some time. Now he said, "It seems to me that there's little you can do about Merlin's power anyway. We have seen what he can do. And we don't know anything about Jade's power. I doubt we could hold Merlin in a cell, could we, Merlin?" he asked.

"No," Merlin said, and he walked through the door into the hall and back. Without the door opening. "You couldn't."

"So," Daniel went on, "the question seems to be, do we want to let these two do what they want, or do we want them where we can see what they're doing?"

"That seems overly simplistic, Daniel," Sam said. "I'm getting the impression that nothing is that simple with Merlin."

"No," he agreed. "But it seems that with the limited options we have, keeping what little bit of an eye we can on them would be prudent."

Carter nodded his head slowly. "Oh, boy." he said. "Uh, Merlin… Grandpa." At Samantha's smirk, he shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?" he said to her.

"Yes, Jack?" Merlin responded.

"How'd you like to stay at my house for a while? Do a little bit of grandfather, grandson bonding? Maybe do some fishing up at the lake?" He looked at his wife. She had her mouth open in shock. "Or not…" he finished lamely.

The older man strode over to them. "Allison, I understand your concern. I give you my word, for what it's worth, that I am no danger to anyone in your household. As a matter of fact, my main concern is their protection."

To Jack, he said. "I would like for you to get to know me very much. Both of you, and your children," he finished. He turned to Sam and Jack. "So will you take Jade with you and get to know her?"

O'Neill looked at his wife, who nodded. He then looked to Carter, as this definitely would count as an "alien amongst us". Carter understood, and said. "I'm not sure why, but I think we can trust Merlin. And what could we do if not? As Daniel says, it's better to have them where we can see what they're up to."

Sam gave her brother a dirty look. "Jack, that's kind of rude!"

Merlin quickly said, "He's quite right, Samantha. With us where you know where we are, you'll sleep better."

With that, he turned to Jade. "So I'll let you go with your parents, Jade. They're good people. You'll like them."

"I'm sure I will, Grandfather, but they're not really my parents, are they? I mean they're not the same people I knew."

Merlin took her to the couch and sat her down, putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. "Child," he said. "I understand what you are saying. No. Neither the mother, nor the father you see in this room knows you. But that doesn't mean that they're not your parents. You see, what made your parents who they were, are still present in this Jack and Sam O'Neill. The memories you had with them won't be there, but the essence of who they are is the same. You'll make new memories with them, and they'll be just as special as the ones you had with the parents you remember." He hugged the girl, who now had tears running down her face, even closer. "Jade, I have cared for you for as long as I can. Now you need to spend time with your parents. Let them get to know how wonderful you are. And get to know how wonderful they are, because I can tell you. I've watched them for awhile. They're good people."

"But I'm going to miss you, Grandfather."

"There's no need to be missing me, child. I'm going to be around here for quite some time yet. I'm going to see this war through." He stood up with her. "Now, Jade. You need to go with your parents. Ok?"

She nodded, "Alright, Grandfather. I will." She looked at Sam and smiled bravely.

"And I'm going to go with your Uncle Jack," Merlin told her. He turned to Jack and Allison. "Shall we?"

Jack shrugged his shoulders. "Sure," he said. "Let's go."

The O'Neills also left, with Jade. Jo was left simmering, with Henry and Jackson.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N The authors would like to clarify that they don't own anything involving Stargate or Eureka. But somewhere in the multiverse we may. Possibly, somewhere, very far from our universe. Ok maybe not._

_**Chapter 10**_

About a week after Merlin arrived, Henry was working on some blueprints he had made up. They were of a ship that he was designing, and in honor of the Asgard, he was planning on calling it the "Valhalla Class". It was a radical departure from the normal Earth based ship designs. He was just measuring off some distances between engine ports, when there came a knock on his door.

"Come in," he called to the open door.

Fargo stuck his head around the door frame. "Hey, Henry! Wanna go to Cafe Diem with Holly and me? We can pull Grace out of her office too."

"Sure, Doug. Let me put these away, then we can go." He stood and put the blueprints away, in a tube on the shelf behind his desk, then he grabbed his coat, and they were on the way.

They met up with Grace and Holly by Fargo's car, Tabitha. Once inside, Fargo asked, "So how are things going at the top, Henry?"

"They're fine, Doug. You know? I really didn't expect to have much time to do any research of my own, once I became head of GD."

"I'm surprised you do," Fargo said. "I was constantly having to put fires out, military people to pacify. It wasn't exactly a glamorous job."

"Mmm hmmm," Henry said. "And I think it's those military people you were having to pacify that makes the difference. We still have military people asking for things, but GD isn't working directly for them anymore. Plus, Jack and Sam O'Neill are good people, who aren't here constantly, asking for updates and demanding this and that."

Holly was in the passenger seat, holding Fargo's hand. She turned to where she could face Henry. "From what I can see, Dr. Deacon, people love what they're doing. There's a much more relaxed atmosphere at GD now." She looked at Fargo, almost startled as she realized what she was saying. "Not that people weren't relaxed when you were in charge, Honey."

"I think what Holly is saying," Grace came to the rescue, "is that since GD has gone private, there's not the demands on people that there were when it was a Defense Department controlled entity."

"Yes! That's it!" Holly almost yelled, grateful for Grace's words.

"_As I've had a chance to talk to some of the other AIs around GD,_" Tabitha commented, "_I find that it's not just the people who are more relaxed. Sheriff Andy was commenting the other day that he has been called out on his duties much less. He and SARAH are able to spend a lot more time together."_

"It sure is strange without Jack and Allison around," Grace observed. "I never thought they'd leave Eureka."

"Well, it wasn't Jack's first choice," Henry said. "He was needed in his capacity of liaison between alien technology and the population of Earth, by Chancellor Jackson."

"Speaking of which," Fargo said, "how're things going with Jack's grandfather?" Most people had heard of the older gentleman who's DNA said he was Jack and Sam's grandfather, although few people realized that he was, in fact, Merlin, the Wizard.

"My understanding is that it's going fine." The four in the car were all in the know of almost all stargate information, so Henry felt safe in elaborating a bit and Tabitha had some serious security subroutines which had been installed when Fargo was head of GD. "They're living in _Atlantis_, and Merlin has joined them. Apparently, he was the last chancellor of the city, before the Ancients abandoned it because of the Wraith war. It's coming home, for Merlin."

They were pulling into a parking spot in front of the popular cafe, so conversation went on hold as they got out of the car. Fargo assured Tabitha he'd be back soon, and they entered the eatery.

At a booth to the left of the door, Jack and Allison sat with the object of their conversation from the car. Merlin was dressed in a loose fitting shirt, jeans, and leather boots, which seemed to be out of place on him. However, he seemed completely comfortable with the look. He stood in respect to the newcomers, and waited until the ladies sat before he reseated himself.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Merlin," Henry said. "How is Jade doing?"

Merlin smiled at Henry. "The pleasure's mine, Dr. Deacon. Jade is adjusting. It's been quite a change for her, adjusting her diet from ancient Egyptian fare to Atlantis." He chuckled a bit at some memory. "Last night, she was quite affronted when she wasn't allowed to get a beer. You see, in ancient Egypt, beer and bread was a staple for commoners. I explained to her that the beer in Atlantis wouldn't be the same as she was used to anyway."

Holly asked, "Really? Why's that?"

"Beer in Egypt was brewed from barley bread. Rather than letting the barley sprout like is done now, a coarse bread was fully baked, then water was poured over it. This mixture was allowed to ferment." He took a sip from his cup. "It really was a very different drink. I'm afraid modern beer is quite bland by comparison."

Henry and Jack had a chuckle over the story. Then, Henry changed the subject. "Merlin," he said, "I'm really glad you're here. I've been working on some plans for a ship, and I really wanted to show it to you. I've got some questions on a re-fueling process that someone of your scientific knowledge could probably help with."

Merlin was intrigued. "Oh? I'd be happy to see the designs you've come up with. I have done a fair bit of space travel, myself, so ship design is something I'm keenly interested in."

"Well, this is something I just recently started playing with. I believe that if you could shield a ship securely enough, you could refuel it from within a star's atmosphere."

"Yes, Dr. Deacon. The Ancients did that with some automated exploratory vessels. They knew it wouldn't necessarily be possible for the ship to carry enough fuel for a long term run, and rather than having robots refuel the ship, why not have the ship refuel itself? It was an elegant solution."

Conversation stopped temporarily as their food came. Merlin asked for a refill of tea, and Jack and Allison both got more Vincespresso.

Henry finished with his sandwich, then took a clean napkin from the dispenser. He pulled a pen from his pocket, and started drawing on the napkin. The ship he was drawing was long, shaped somewhat like a spearhead. About three quarters of the way along it's length, it flared wide, and the superstructure got much taller. "This is the ship I've been designing," he said. "I haven't named it, yet, but I want to make it for both scientific purposes, and unfortunately but necessarily, for battle."

Merlin was staring at the napkin. His hand had frozen halfway to his mouth with the teacup in it. "Dr. Deacon," he said so quietly, his voice was almost a whisper. "We need to talk. Can you come to Atlantis with me? Now?"

Henry was unsure what was wrong, but he agreed. Then, the entire group went outside. Merlin had brought Jack and Allison over from Atlantis in a jumper, which was parked like a car, down the street a few doors. Fargo ran to explain to Tabitha that he would pick her up in a while, then they climbed into the jumper. Merlin explained that he wanted Henry to get anything he had, showing his plans for the new ship.

They stopped for a moment at GD, while Henry went to get the blueprints. He told Larry that he would be out for the rest of the day. Then they were on the way to Atlantis.

"What's going on?" Jack asked once they were on their way.

Merlin glanced back at Jack, then at Henry. "I know that ship, Dr. Deacon. It is very familiar, but we need to talk to Samantha first, before I tell you too much of what I know."

The three thousand mile trip to Atlantis took just under ninety minutes for the jumper, and Merlin would say no more about the ship until they arrived. Henry was quiet as he thought about the surprising turn of events his lunch had taken. Jack and Allison quietly discussed things with Grace in the back of the jumper. Fargo and Holly listened in, and occasionally offered an opinion. After a while though, their speculation ran its course, and everyone fell silent.

When they arrived at Atlantis, Merlin expertly guided the jumper into it's slip, and everyone got out. They descended to the control room where Mr. Woolsey was waiting for them.

"Merlin, may I ask what is going on here?" Woolsey asked. The two had actually become good friends in the last week, as they had being the head of Atlantis' government in common.

"Richard," Merlin answered. "I'm not really sure myself. Is my granddaughter back from Altair yet?"

"She's due any moment. We're expecting her wormhole anytime."

"Good. May I use the ancient database?"

"I really don't think you need to ask my permission to use that, Merlin," Woolsey observed.

"Thank you. When my granddaughter arrives, would you please escort her to us? Oh. Bring General O'Neill and Chancellor Jackson as well, please," Merlin said, heading toward the database room.

A few minutes later, Woolsey entered the database room, with four people in tow. Samantha and Jack O'Neill, Jackson, and Eric Marten.

"Daddy!" Holly shouted, almost throwing herself into Eric's arms.

"Hello, Holly," he said. "It is most gratifying to see you." He turned to Merlin. "Sir. Do you have any objections to me being here too?"

"Certainly not, Dr. Marten." He turned to the mayor. "Mr. Woolsey, I trust you can and will remain as well."

Merlin turned to Henry. "Dr. Deacon, would you please show my granddaughter and her husband the plans for the ship you are designing?"

Henry had carried the tube of blueprints under his arm, and now he opened the end, and removed the rolled paper. He unrolled it, and gingerly handed it to Sam, who took it and showed it to O'Neill. "Is this a joke?" O'Neill asked.

"I don't think it is," Merlin responded.

"But that can't be," Samantha said. "How could Henry be drawing plans for…. this?"

"Would someone please let us know what's going on?" Jack Carter demanded.

"Sure, Jack," Sam said. She turned to her grandfather. "Would you like to do the honors?" she asked.

In response, Merlin turned to the raised dias in the middle of the room. "Show me _Destiny_," he told it.

A hologram coalesced in midair, and Henry, like a sleepwalker, moved towards it. He got his face so close to the hologram that his nose was in danger of de-rezzing what he was looking at. He slowly circled the model three times before he looked up at Merlin. "This is my ship," he said, bewildered.

"Well," Merlin said. "It certainly appears to be. But what I'd like to know, is how you are drawing the plans for a ship that left Earth over fifty million years ago."

Jack Carter was looking from the model to Henry, to Merlin, then back again. "Wait a moment," he finally spluttered. "Those blueprints are of _Destiny_? The _Destiny_? The one Dr. Rush is on?"

"It would appear so," Merlin answered.

"But Merlin," Sam argued. "There's got to be a logical explanation for all of this."

"Which is what I've said ever since I started working in Eureka," her brother said sardonically.

Allison would have laughed, had the situation allowed for it. "There's one way to find out for sure," she said. "Aren't there some communication stones here in Atlantis? I seem to remember something about that in the briefing we received back in GD."

Samantha got excited. "Yeah! I could take Henry there, and he could see _Destiny_ for himself."

"What would that prove?" Merlin asked. "Simply that the model here is very exact. There are pretty complete plans here in the database."

"I understand that," she countered, "But…" She faltered for a moment, then asked. "Do you have any idea at all why Henry would be making these plans?"

"In my travels around the universe, I've seen some very strange things. I've seen alien influences on human minds several times." He paused for a moment. "That is something we have to consider."

"These thoughts certainly _seem_ like mine, Merlin" Henry said defensively.

"I understand that," Merlin said. "I simply said that the possibility exists, and that it should be considered."

Jackson had been quiet for awhile, but now he said, "There is also the possibility, Merlin, that you are the one influencing Henry."

"Yes," Merlin agreed. "That possibility does exist, but can you think of any possible reason I could have to feed Henry the plans for a ship fifty million years distant?"

"Disinformation," O'Neill said.

"Oh, yes," Merlin said, somewhat sarcastically. "I feed Henry the plans for a ship, for which you can easily verify the plans here, in Atlantis, for the purpose of misleading you, somehow which escapes me at the moment."

O'Neill shrugged his shoulders. "I agree that it's farfetched."

"Extremely," Merlin said dryly.

Fargo was thinking hard. "Even if Merlin was feeding false information about _Destiny_ to Henry, what good would it do? We could check in the database here, or even use the stones to communicate with the ship itself. Besides that, it seems that he has been helping to defeat the Ori all along. If this is really Merlin, then we know that he wants to defeat the Ori just as much as we do, if not more. So the question isn't 'Is Merlin feeding disinformation to Henry'. It's 'Is this really Merlin'."

Henry was silent for quite some time, then he said, "He's right. So do we have any reason to believe that this is not Merlin?"

The answer, was simply, no. But honestly, there was no real reason to believe it was either.

"Jack," Sam said to her husband. "Why not take Henry to _Destiny_?"

"I don't see why not," O'Neill said. "Are you ok with that, Henry?"

Henry looked at Grace for confirmation. She nodded her head. Henry turned to O'Neill, beaming. "I'd love to go," he said.

Henry felt like he was falling endlessly. It was similar to the stargate, but not identical. Suddenly, he opened his eyes, and he looked around seeing a dimly lit room. There was one communication stone on the table in front of him.

He knew this room. It was in his mind, as a blueprint. He stood and looked down at his body. His hands were white, and he was a bit heavier than normal. He was wearing a red shirt with _you are here _emblazoned on it. He looked at a mirror on the wall, and saw the face of Eli Wallace looking back at him. He had been briefed on Eli, so he understood that he would find himself in his body. Sam had been unable to come with him, as only Eli remained awake. The entire contingent of people on _Destiny_ were in stasis for the voyage between galaxies.

He stood, and walked into the hallway. Again, what he saw was entirely familiar, but he had only imagined it, never seen it complete.

He entered the bridge of the ship, and looked at the command chair. This too, he had imagined, and it looked just as his imagination said it should. He slowly turned, looking at the command center of a ship, until a few hours ago, he had thought was his design.

He stopped turning, and came to a decision. He left the command center, and almost sprinted to the power storage facilities. He walked to a console, and reached under it, and felt a switch. Up until now, he had been uncertain if he would find the switch there. He was completely unsure as to why it was placed where it was, but it was there. He gritted his teeth, and flipped the switch.

From deep within the bowels of _Destiny_, came a rumbling. It was a vibration that was almost a living thing in and of itself. Henry extracted his hand from under the console, and went to another one. He scanned the gauges on the screens. They showed a steady increase in the power available for the ship to use in speed and shields. As the power increased, Henry headed back to the bridge. When he arrived there, he walked over to another console. He looked at a tray to the side of the chair built into the deck. Then, he examined the console itself, flipped two switches, and the tray began to glow. He looked at the console, but the writing there was incomprehensible. "That's not right," he murmured. He wasn't sure which switch would do what he wanted. He searched his memory for the proper sequence buried there. He KNEW it could work. He just wasn't sure how to make it work without being able to read the displays. He touched a control. He didn't move it. Just paused. "No," he said definitively, then touched another and moved it. Next, he pressed another button and held it. "_Destiny_ to Atlantis. Come in, Atlantis"

He released the switch and waited. He didn't have long.

On Atlantis, Eli was talking to Sam and Fargo. "So Henry actually has complete blueprints for _Destiny_?"

"They appear to be," Sam told him.

"Are they in English? Cause if they are, they'd be invaluable!" It was strange for Fargo to look at Henry's body, but hear someone who sounded so completely different speaking.

"I would imagine they would," Fargo agreed.

"How could it happen, though?"

Sam considered. "Think about it, Eli. Look at what the communication stones do. I'm not suggesting that someone is drawing those plans for Henry, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility."

"That's true," Eli conceded. "I've seen plenty of weird things over the past couple of years. This is just one more."

Fargo was about to say something when a shout came from Mr. Woolsey. He looked over at the mayor. Mr. Woolsey's mouth had dropped open, and he seemed to be struggling to speak. Finally, he managed to squeak out, "Ok. We'll…. We'll be there in a moment."

"What's happening, Mr. Woolsey?" O'Neill asked.

"Henry is calling Atlantis from _Destiny_."


End file.
